Web Layouts – Where’s the Beef?

Posted August 1st, 2008 by Albert Banks

men.style.com Blog

I check out a diverse range of websites.  Recently, I stumbled onto the blogs on men.style.com. As I viewed an article I was stunned by the layout of the blog.

The actual content of the article was squeezed into a tiny column. The blog layout is 1000 pixels wide. Yet the main content is tucked into a 355 pixel (including padding) column. Why so small? Even the oldest monitors have at least a 600 pixel viewing width…

This is a result of an ever increasing trend of cramming as much “additional content”, and more specifically advertisements into a layout.

Yes, users can use ad-blockers in their browser, but they can’t regain the visual real estate lost by such layouts. I believe we’ve reached a point where sites are going to loose visitors.

That certainly won’t improve ad revenue…