Forum Moderators: phranque
Amazon.com is a leader in usability.
Yahoo & Google are leaders in search.
Ebay is a leader for auctions.
Gator is a leader in spyware ;).
Dmoz is a leader of directories.
If you want to make the best site for your own situation, you should first decide what action you want to occur. Do you want more page views, repeat visitors, completed forms, sales etc. Then build a site for that purpose.
I like Landsend.com for usability for an ecommerce site.
And if traffic is the measure of a good website, Yahoo is the best.
There are some strict rules though, in a few areas:
It should:
1. Be very usable (a search here on "usability" may help you)
2. Validate for HTML code and other codes used (e.g. CSS), using standard code validation programs.
3. Display correctly in the more popular browsers. I feel that its images should be made on a calibrated monitor.
4. Download quickly on the type of connection that most of your target audience has.
5. Be easy to maintain.
6. Should be appealing to your target audience.
7. Look "professional"
8. Not have major impediments to online marketing (e.g. frames, large hunks of scripting before the body text, etc.)
9. Not depend on fads in design or coding (they will soon be made "old fashioned", as the next fad hits)
That's all that comes to mind at the moment :)
Building the Perfect Page - Part I [webmasterworld.com]
Building the Perfect Page- Part II [webmasterworld.com]
Building the Perfect Page - Part III [webmasterworld.com]