Critiquing other people's websites?

Myuser01

Registered User
Messages
27
I run a small agency and i vlog a little. I'm thinking of doing a critique section where I run through other websites. Pointing out the pros and cons of the site's design, tech stack, SEO, maybe social media, copywriting, brand story, responsiveness and various other aspects of the site.

I won't eviscerate anyone. I'll give a balanced view. Pointing out what think they got right and what could be improved IMO.

Need advice though. I'll probably choose my local city council website for my first review. They are using a proprietary Content Management System, to update their site. I'll definitely be making the point, that I think that's a bad idea. But I don't particularly want to get sued by their web design company. Since this is obviously their business model.

Does anyone have any experience in this area? What are the pitfalls that I should sidestep? Any general advice?
 
@Myuser01 the first question I'd ask is why you chose to post this in Askaboutlaw? What is the connection between your question and any aspect of law?

The second question I have is how do you propose to communicate? Being kind, you have very strange notions about English sentence structure and punctuation, to the extent that I'd be inclined to dismiss any commentary you'd contribute on my web-site.
 
You will need to be 100% certain that you can reproduce any content before publishing on your own site, some site owners might be open to it in exchange for some usability or formatting advice, but I'd imagine most would not want such exposure. Do you need to use real life examples to demonstrate your points?

For many, using a content management service is a very good idea. If you're going to publicly attack one or more of those providers, tread with caution and ensure you don't say anything that isn't verifiably true.

Perhaps think about who your target market is and choose sites more appropriate to that audience. The local council for example isn't going to be awarding contracts based on vlogs.
 
Let's say you did a critique of Askaboutmoney.

You like A,B & C.

The site could be improved by doing x, y and z.

And then you say something like

"Askaboutmoney uses a forum package called Xenforo which is ok, but not as flexible or uptodate as vBulletin and askaboutmoney could be vastly improved by moving to vBulletin"

I very much doubt Xenforo would sue you for this. There are many tech sites comparing and contrasting software packages.

You probably should specify why Xenforo is not flexible and maybe link to some other independent review.

If you made some sort of false statement such as "the software behind this website is a security hazard ..." then you might be opening yourself up to a legal action. But again, if you post a link to some independent site reviewing the security of the software, you would probably be ok.

There have not been many defamation cases over online reviews. And they have usually been when the reviewer was malicious or very careless. If you stick to facts and reasonable opinions, which are supported by facts, you should be ok.

Brendan
 
Back
Top