The latest information about the website, including recent changes and new features.
For more details about individual updates, check the change history at the bottom of the pages which may have further details.
After more than two months of work, the site went live today at 16:23 UTC+1. 23 years and 23 days after the original company was incorporated.
The redirects were improved, redirecting old article addresses and redirecting miswebdesign.com (without the www.) and from visitors using http:// to be taken to https://.
Links to articles had dates added. The index of article links was updated to be automatically generated. The display was improved.
Some article links which were not being generated automatically were updated so that they are.
The naming of articles was improved.
The server was configured and prepared to host the new site.
Change histories were set up for all articles.
Images were cleaned up, organising them all to directories and removing any that weren't used.
The architecture of the software that publishes the site was improved.
The articles section was set up wth automated checking.
The layout of the articles was improved.
The site news page was updated and improved.
A handler was configured and tested for contact forms.
The accessibility intro article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content and images. It was merged to a single page rather than being set up as two pages as had been done originally. Other than that it was not modified. Well, the links were changed to HTTPS and some outdated tags replaced, but the content wasn't changed.
The CSS positioning properties article from 2003 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Fancy Paragraphs with CSS article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Google Dance article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Google Updates article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The mod_accessibility article from 2003 was brought over with all of the original content.
The PageRank article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Random Content Rotation article from 2003 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Search Engine Crawling article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Using Relative Font Sizes article from 2003 was brought over with all of the original content.
The XHTML Web Design for Beginners article from 2002 was brought over with all of the original content.
The XHTML Web Design for Beginners - Part Two article from 2003 was brought over with all of the original content.
The XHTML Character References article has been put back to its original format from 2003 of three separate articles, and all of the original content brought over.
The Why CSS is Good for Google article from 2004 was brought over with all of the original content.
The Understanding Relational Databases article from 2004 was brought over with all of the original content.
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
Automatic checks were put in place to ensure that published and updated dates are valid. A <time> tag (ref) was put in place for published and updated dates.
The display of articles was improved, particularly working on the header to bring it in line with the style of the rest of the site. The same code for the page info section was brought in as on other pages with similar information.
A page type for articles was created to help with verifying and publishing them. Old styling was removed that is no longer used.
The interlinking of articles was overhauled and brought in line with the styling and structure of similar content on other pages.
The display of page tips was fixed. It was broken on slim screens and obscured some of the quote marks that are used in many of the tips.
Checks for the change history were set up, to make sure that all the entries are in order, and the first and last dates match the published and updated dates.
The main Find a Provider page had its content improved.
The structure of the publishing code was generally cleaned up and improved. The integration of the sitemap code was improved.
The start of a contact page was created. The form processing has not yet been configured, but the form itself is there.
The display of <dl> definition lists (ref) was improved to bring it inline with the styling of other content.
The structure of the website code was generally cleaned up and improved.
Support for browsers with slim displays was improved across the site.
A sitemap.xml file was set up to be automatically generated every time the site is published, including every page and the date that it was last modified.
Display of published and updated dates was removed from some pages where it didn't seem useful to provide it.
Automatic checks were added to ensure that every image on the site actually exists and is functional. This is run every time the site is published and will stop publishing if any issue is found.
In the same way as images and internal links, automatic checks were added to ensure that anchor links within pages are all configured properly and have a target that exists.
Checks were added to ensure that all interlink links on every page are valid and functioning. This is run every time the site is published and will stop publishing if any issue is found.
The general structure and architecture of the code for publishing the site was improved.
The overall footer for the site was improved. Very close to going live with the new site now!
The industry web design links were generally improved and harmonised. Capitalisation was fixed for some listings that needed it. An unwanted industry listing page was removed. Breadcrumb links were added.
The meta data on all pages was improved, removing items that are not being used and improving the ordering. Published and updated dates were set up for every page that didn't have them.
The naming and structure of the code for publishing the site was improved. Work continued with formalising the dates for when pages were published and updated, running the script and checking the changes.
A script was written for processing the existing site content (specifically the 101 web designer listing pages) and pulling out the published and updated dates to be put in their new formalised position.
The general structure of the site publishing code was improved.
Continuing from the work done yesterday, the presentation of the web designer listings was further improved, along with doing more with counts. The RSS feed that was previously provided was removed (it may be brought back in the future, particularly if requested). A robots.txt file was created, advising search engine crawlers how to crawl the website.
The general architecture of the site publishing code was improved. The tracking of published dates for pages was improved and formalised.
The presentation of the web designer listings was improved. More was done with counts of web designer listings, including displaying them on USA Cities Web Designers and USA States Web Designers.
The general quality of the code that generates the site was improved. A header identifying the type of common page setups was created to help with managing the site content.
A new section for Specialist Web Design was added. It doesn't currently have any listings, but will feature listings based around specialisations such as PPC advertising, Shopify, Webflow and many other disciplines that can benefit from the attention of a specialist when needed. A stub for the section has been added in order to make it clear when it is intended for the site to go and in order for search engines to make a start on registering, indexing and ranking the site for that.
The listings of web designers by location received a lot of general updates. Counts of providers were added to the USA States and USA Cities indexes. Along with a lot of updates to introductions and supporting information.
The section for industry specialists was updated to have a new address at /industry-web-design (formerly just /industry). This section is still very much a stub like the web design specialists section but does have individual pages for many industries, albeit with no listings on them at present.
All of that work is planned for the first quarter of 2026, if not before. Right now the priority is on getting the site to a point that it can be made live and replace the existing site, which at the time of writing this it is still not there. But very close now! The list is getting much shorter after an initial version of the web designers by location listings was completed.
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
The indexing of web designer listings got an update today. The main index had already been separated out to US cities and US states but these were now moved to completely separate pages. One for the USA Cities index and one for USA States.
These were also updated on the individual listings pages so that the cities pages link to all of the other city pages and the states to the other state pages. For example see the Chicago Web Designers page or Milwaukee Web Designers, and for states see Illinois Web Designers or Virginia Web Designers.
Counts of web designers were added, so the main Web Designers by Location index now shows counts on the spotlight listings, and each individual pages shows the total number of agencies, boutiques and studios, and freelancers that are listed on the page.
The performance of the publishing system was improved so that the site publishes instantly rather than having a delay of a couple of seconds or so.
All web designer listing pages, including both the pages themselves and the city and state indexes, now sport breadcrumb trails to clearly show where they are within the structure and to make it easier to navigate around the directory.
Verification of the listings now begins, checking over all of the lists to find errors and remove duplicates, almost all with automated checks that run every time the site is published and refuse to publish the site until the issue is fixed.
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
As part of this process, it has been possible to get a count of the organisations listed, after duplicates were removed, and it is currently close to 2000 at 1875.
It was decided that no organisation would be listed more than once in the directory. There is interlinking between locations that are close to each other so it's still possible to find them (with more to be done on that, currently it's just city to its state and states to their cities, mostly one to one but not in every case). Generally just the headquarters are listed as identified on the LinkedIn page for the organisation. We are considering options for listing organistions multiple times when they have actual offices in more than one location but whether that will be done or not remains to be seen.
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Well it took 39 days, and now it's done! All 101 web designer listings pages have been overhauled. It started out as more than that but a number were removed during the process for various reasons.
They could certainly benefit from a lot more attention, and there is a long list of plans, but for now at least an initial version of each page has been made with many having up to thirty or perhaps more organisations and freelancers listed.
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
This site news area was created and populated with information about work done so far.
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
A new page was created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
A decision was taken to start out with a larger selection on all listings in the web designer listings. So to update all pages done up to this point with more listings, and to start with a lot more on the rest of the pages which are remaining to be done.
Pages were updated in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
A decision was taken to completely overhaul the web designer listings, staying with the current list of cities and states, but starting from scratch with the content. If any listed cities are found to have highly limited availability of web designers, they will be removed. Web addresses will be updated to remove the numbers that are found in some of them.
New pages were created in the web designer listings...
After being reacquired by the original owner, a complete overhaul of the site begins. Changing the site from a web design provider to a learning and provider listings site. Updating existing content, removing content which is not wanted, bringing back old content which is useful, and starting over with a fresh design based on a retro look inspired by the 2002 original.
More details to be published at a later date.