Bad Examples of Websites: 6 Famous Sites, and What They Teach

What makes a website bad?

A website is bad when the person visiting can’t do what they came to do. That usually means they can’t tell what the business offers, can’t read the page on their phone, or can’t find a way to get in touch.

6 famous examples, and whether they’re bad

1. Arngren.net: the classic, and still chaotic

Arngren, a Norwegian shop selling electric vehicles and gadgets, appears on many lists of bad websites. Its homepage held 611 links and 417 images in our check. Products overlap in a collage with no obvious starting point, and the page scrolled sideways even on a 1,280 pixel desktop screen. A first-time visitor has no idea where to look. We can’t see its sales from the outside, and it may suit regular customers who know the layout.

2. Space Jam (1996): old, and preserved on purpose

The original Space Jam site is still online at its own address, with a 1996 copyright line and space-themed icons. It has no mobile layout, runs 508 pixels wide on a 390 pixel phone, and contains about 20 words of text a browser can read. A modern checklist would fail it, but nobody goes there to buy anything, so we wouldn’t call it bad.

3. Drudge Report: hard on a phone, familiar to regulars

The Drudge Report is a plain wall of headline links. It had 204 links in our check and no mobile viewport tag, so the page ran 658 pixels wide on a phone screen. That’s a real usability cost for phone readers. Regular readers probably know where everything is. A new local business has no regulars yet, so copying it would only leave the cost.

4. Berkshire Hathaway: plain, and it answers the question

Berkshire Hathaway’s homepage is a short list of links with one image and about 181 words. It has no mobile viewport tag either, though the page did fit our phone screen. Shareholders come for annual reports and the annual meeting, and those links are right there. It has an unusual audience that already knows the company, so you probably can’t get away with it, but it’s a fair argument against clutter.

5. Hacker News: plain, and it works

Hacker News is mostly small gray and black text. It has a mobile viewport tag and fit our phone screen with no sideways scrolling. With 230 links on the page, it’s dense, but every line has one job. We’d put it on a list of good websites with bad styling.

6. HealthCare.gov in 2013: a failure no screenshot shows

HealthCare.gov had the most serious failure on this list. At its launch on October 1, 2013, only six people could sign up and choose a plan on the first day. The federal inspector general’s case study blamed the failure mainly on poor management and leadership. No design change would have saved that launch, because the problem was the system behind the page. Our comments apply only to that 2013 launch.

How the examples measure up on a phone

What bad websites look like for local businesses

The bad websites that cost local businesses customers tend to look ordinary, and visitors leave them without saying why. In our study of local business websites, 41.4% of the 1,206 homepages we analyzed showed neither an email address nor a contact form, and 16.9% showed a phone number that couldn’t be tapped. Only 38 had no mobile viewport tag, and 49 lacked working HTTPS.

The typical bad local site looks acceptable and makes the business hard to contact. Our scoring flagged only 147 of the 1,206 sites as needing substantial work, and many old-looking sites turned out to be healthy.

How to check your own website in five minutes

Use your phone, on cellular data, and go through your own homepage as if you’d never seen it:

• Within a few seconds, can you tell what the business does and where?
• Does the page fit the screen with no sideways scrolling?
• Can you tap the phone number and have it dial?
• Does the contact form send, and does the message arrive?
• Is the address bar free of a “Not secure” warning?
• Are the hours, services and prices still right?

One or two misses usually mean a repair. If most of them fail, read the 12 signs a website needs a redesign and then what a website redesign costs. We replace failing sites with a single fast page for a flat $1,000, and if a few fixes will do, we’ll tell you that instead.

Frequently asked questions

What is an example of a bad website?

Arngren.net is a common pick. Its homepage had 611 links and 417 images when we checked, with no mobile layout. For a failure of function, HealthCare.gov’s 2013 launch is the best documented: only six people could choose a plan on the first day.

Is an ugly website always a bad website?

No. A site is bad when it stops its visitors from doing what they came for. Hacker News looks plain and fits a phone. A good-looking site with a broken contact form can cost a local business real inquiries.

What are the most common website design mistakes?

Not saying what the business does, cluttered layouts, pages that don’t fit a phone, slow loading and contact details that are hard to find. In our study of local business websites, 41.4% of homepages showed neither an email address nor a contact form.

Sources

• Site measurements are our own, taken November 1, 2026 in a 390 pixel wide browser. Live sites change, so yours may differ.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, HealthCare.gov: Case Study of CMS Management of the Federal Marketplace (2016)
• Health Affairs, analysis of the OIG report on HealthCare.gov’s launch