Pre-Launch Review
Site Name:Trekked.net
Site Type: Blog
Age: 2 months 11 days
Appearance
As a walker myself, I was greatly looking forward to doing this review, but I feel a little let down, on first appearance the front page is a host of idea's, with no real continuity, black & white drawings are mixed with non appropriate images, and poorly cut and pasted images from other sites. The background to the actual blog is a total mess, if you had used wordpress, it would have looked a whole lot better.
Even zooming in and out failed to make things look better, in fact they only became worse the further I delved.
It needs a complete re-think in appearance before this site is anywhere near launch.
Layout
The google map of treks ( walks) is good idea, but so big and just under the header, is a big no-no, the teasers are much too large, and the front page alone is way beyond my scroll limit, you do not need such large images as the ones you have chosen.
The navigation is very poor, the link to Northern European treks takes you to Greenland, but shows a Google map of Norway, Greenland as I am sure you know is very large island just off the North American coast.
First Impressions and Interest
As I said I was looking forward to reviewing this site/blog as the wife and myself are quite keen walkers, overall the first impressions were not good, and the front page did not really inspire me to delve deeper, as mentioned before the teasers are far too large.
The first impression is of a site that has been put together in hurry, as if it is part of a brainstorming session before all the bad bits have been removed.
Content
From what I could discover, most of the content is not your original work, I found sentences and phrases on your site present on at least two or three others, including Wiki,www.australianwalkingholidays.com,
http://www.hikingnewzealand.com; and all were posted before your entry.
In one or two cases it's word for word a whole article, if you had given the original author a credit it would have been somewhat acceptable.
Words from the Reviewer
IMHO this site needs a lot of work before it can be launched, more of the content needs to be original, not plagiarised from other sites, the layout needs adjusting, links need to be correct and the navigation needs some attention as well.
There are a lot better ways to use Wordpress, I am sure there must be better default themes on the net that would make this rather unique niche blog look a whole lot better.
If you are going to research walks then you really do have to write it up in your own words, directly copy/pasting from other sites is not good for the blog, or it's reputation.
Instead of the massive Google map you have I would also use a map of each walk, rather than relying on Google to do the work for you.
I've marked you down harshly because of the plagiarism, and the lack of attention to detail in the navigation, the banner and background have also meant you losing out.
Star Rating
1.
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