I thought those old 'Under Construction' GIFs were a joke, but my 1997 site just broke without one

I was rebuilding my personal site from 1997 and decided to skip the classic 'Under Construction' animated GIF. Big mistake. A friend tried to visit while I was editing the main page and got a broken link error that scared him off for good. It convinced me those silly graphics actually served a real purpose by telling people the page was being worked on live. What other 90s web design quirks turned out to be secretly useful?

3 comments

3 Comments

ross.jason10h ago

Totally agree about the "Under Construction" GIFs being useful! I learned the hard way too. I just put a plain text note in a bright color at the top of the page now saying "Working on this right now, might look weird!" It stops people from thinking the whole site is broken.

kelly_chen8h ago

Remember my friend's broken links last week?

derek_burns8h ago

Love that plain text idea from @ross.jason, it's way less annoying than those old blinking signs.