When we think of heinous websites, it’s usually the words and images displayed on them that come to mind and not the visual design, which templates and decades of wisdom have typically managed to keep at a certain quality bar that only the rare examples fail to reach. The internet is vast, though, and keen explorers can still venture out into the wilderness to find garish artifacts from the past or businesses that have continued to update the digital equivalents of an old house’s never-replaced green shag carpet.
To “honor” these ugliest of online destinations, we have Websites From Hell.
An about page, placed on the fittingly terrible-looking website, describes the archive’s mission and tells users to “submit your own website, a website of your (ex-)client, or just any other website you just stumpled [sic] over.”
“There is only one requirement,” it continues. “The website should be a nightmare! There are gifs all over? More frames than you can count? Java applets used as navigations? Rainbow backgrounds and so on? Yes, that would be a great candidate for hell!”
A few of the most popular entries include fairly straightforward visual assaults like the eye-watering landing page of omfgdogs.com and the disorienting “web world” collage of yyyyyyy.info. Some of our favorites from these selections are the new age wasteland that is angels-heaven.org, the blast of imagery and chaotic quotes at yvettesbridalformal.com (“Yvette’s has a mysterious ancient secret for YOU!!”), and the wonders of rogerart.com, which implores visitors to “RUN 4 P.O.P.E.” There’s also a website design company at webkingusa.com, which makes a great case for its services with a photo of a man with a crown edited onto his head.
To descend the depths for yourself, grab the hand of your personal Virgil and stare into the inferno over to Websites From Hell.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com