FREE 60 second architecture test...,

1. Take a look at your homepage...,

   Does it have two or more "panes", separated by a moveable divider?  Is one pane able to be scrolled independently of the other?
   

   Yes?

   You have an actual web dinosaur, soon to be extinct!   Your designer certainly knew his or her stuff back when your site was created, but that was long ago and "frames" have since become a discredited method of web layout.   Your website doesn't need an upgrade, it needs complete replacement.   Some of your content might be salvageable but the architecture is completely shot.  Do yourself a favour and build a new site from scratch.

2. Right click on your homepage, then select "view source"
   (alternatively VIEW menu >> view source).

   Do you see lots of <table></table>, <tr></tr> and <td></td> tags?
   

   Yes?

   Oh dear, your site is laid out using "tables".  This would be fine for the presentation of data, but is inappropriate for a webpage containing mixtures of text, graphics, hyperlinks and styling.  Visually the page might hang together well but its design is fundamentally flawed.   This website needs a major rebuild.

3. View the source once again (see 2).

   Can you see regular occurrences of the words "class", "id", "style" & "span"?
   

   Yes?

   You have the components of an excellent structure but the styling elements (CSS elements) need to be separated from the markup (HTML or XHTML).   Restructuring this website is a minor upgrade.

How bad can it be?

o really find out how badly your website needs an upgrade, use the link below to the WC3 website validation service.  All you need to do is input your homepage URL and the resultant report will let you know just how many errors your webpage has.

W3C Validation Service