25 Ugly Websites That Make You Want to Laugh or Cry

Sometimes websites are just so darn ugly. You have to wonder what they were thinking about when they slapped it together. However, if you want users to take an interest in your website you can learn from all the mistakes of previous website admins.

While it might be a bit ugly below, every website is a goldmine of information on how not to design a website. When you put together the lessons, you can determine the best way to design your own site.

List of 25 Ugly Websites

“Grand Pri” has Craiglist

Not sure what a crazed woman screaming has to do with bath tubs, but heck! Let’s go with it! It is not as if the website is as ugly as the tubs. Hm!

Side note: The guy falling in the tub is a great visual for bath safety.

13. Mortimer Lumber

Nothing says quality lumber like an overcrowded website portal. Even better, click on the website link to see how the box on the left flashes and distracts you from the products they sell.

14. Media Tek

While not the ugliest site on the list, what exactly do they do? Their parallax site does not explain the services they provide until halfway down the page.

15. Serene Naturist

Do beautiful animated butterflies make you have a craving for a massage?

If not, what about a naked roman statue? Serene-Naturist is for a massage parlor, so I am not sure if naked women is the correct message for your prospective clients.

16. Super Video

If ugly moving graphics and stroke inducing backgrounds are your cup of tea, then you should check out Super Video.

Based on the text on the website, they provide valuable information…I think! That is part of the problem with this website. No clear value to the site.

17. P&M computers, Inc

Do you remember the pointless intro screens a lot of websites used to use. Meet the most pointless intro screen ever designed.

The load time here is extremely slow, and when it finally does load you basically see their logo. Why not put that in the header, and get rid of this page altogether.

18. Richards Brothers Seafoods

When you think of purchasing fish products, do you look for a navigation bar that blocks your product images? Hopefully not!

19. Rush Biddies

Nothing attracts college girls looking to rush for a sorority like an outdated website that is not even mobile optimized. Text heavy websites for a generation growing up on YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat is not going to pass muster.

20. Imprint Technologies

Technology companies that have a mismatched scrolling feature, and out of place backgrounds generally inspire confidence.

Next add in some really ugly colors. A little green mixed with yellow with a background of silver is far from ideal.

Finally, just want to bring up the scrolling feature one more time. Unlike most websites where the scrolling feature is on the side of the website, the scrolling feature here covers the middle of the page.

That indicates a few things. First of all, the website is not optimized for mobile devices. Second, the site is not oriented right. Over time, this could mean the website can break down. Third, it looks unprofessional.

21. Centre for Interdisciplinary Artefact Studies

Looking to show off your archeological finds to the world? Then you might want to consider not using a flash website that moves around as you look at the items.

Google officially stated that flash websites do not get indexed. Therefore, this is a perfectly good waste of a site. Secondly, it is annoying to look at the artefacts as that move while you look at them.

On a positive note, at least the background has a lot of white (black) space.

22. Chester Tourist

Another example of a navigation bar that gone wrong. Your navigation bars should be one line, and one line only. Otherwise, they are off-putting.

Plus, if you are marketing a tourist spot, then you need to ensure your website is visually appealing.

23. Bear Springs Blossom

This is a non-profit website to encourage environmental change. While the website is clear in their intent, the oval image of the smokestack with a thermometer does not inspire climate change.

24. The Register

We mentioned earlier how too much text can be overwhelming. Welcome to another example of this. The other problem is that the text is so tightly packed together it makes it hard to distinguish specific articles.

While the content on the website might be great, breaking up content into smaller pieces can make it more readable. This is cram it down your throat obnoxious.

25. The Slide Rule Universe

Do you remember when slide rules were cool? It must have been a time well before Slide Rule Universe created this dreadful website.

While you can almost forgive a site for creating an outdated website design when selling an archaic tool, this site is just not user-friendly. The ecommerce design below the image is hard to follow. You do not get a good sense of what you are purchasing.

Plus, the addition of the Twitter button looks like they just stuck it into the middle of the website without caring how it would look.

Finally, the scariest thing is that they last updated the website on August 16, 2015. Based on the look, you would think that would be August 16, 1995.

Final Thoughts

Why do we show you ugly websites? Is it to make your eyes hurt?

No! As we mentioned earlier, ugly websites are lessons in what you can do differently to ensure your website looks better and works better than the ones shown above.

Look at the elements of each website, and how they negatively impact their ability to drive traffic and sales. Then start creating a plan to make your website without any of these nagging elements.