Review:

Website Garage

by Joshua Reimer

September 06, 1999

I believe that the Website Garage was the first program of its kind out there, but like all good ideas it has been cloned many times.

The premise of Website Garage is quite simple: A webmaster visits the site and simply types in their website's URL, and then gets a "tuneup report" from the "head mechanic". Included in the report is an overall rating as well as individual ratings on browser compatibility, !Register-It! readiness (a mass search engine submission program), load time, dead links, spelling, and HTML design.

If it does find any deficiencies, it will give you suggestions as to what you should do.

Of course, they will also try to offer you their paid services. Some of them look like they could be valuable, however some can also be found elsewhere for free.

!Register-It!, for example, is a mass submission program, and you all should know how I feel about them by now.

Their Hitometer does the same things that other free trackers do, however the benefit is that you don't have to include an image on your homepage.

Also, their GifLube which shrinks your gifs is not original: I know of several other sites which will perform this service for free.

The TuneUp Plus package will check your links on up to 25 pages of your site, would be nice, although I do know of other websites that will do the same service for free.

All that said, they do have some other original services. BrowserSnapshot, for example, will let you see what your site will look like in a number of different browsers.

They also offer press release submission to the media, which can be a great traffic generator if done right.

All in all, Website Garage offers an excellent free service, I am just not quite so sure that all of their paid services are worth buying, as you can get them elsewhere for free. However, some people would probably appreciate the ease of use that the Website Garage offers.

To receive your free tune up report, visit Website Garage.

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