Most "bad website" complaints are really conversion or speed problems, both already covered elsewhere on this site. This is the other list: design and build choices that quietly block Google from reading or crediting a page at all. The five worth checking first are text baked into a graphic instead of real HTML text, a navigation menu built entirely in JavaScript with no plain links underneath, pop-ups or interstitials that cover the content on a phone, leftover Flash-era elements from an old template, and a redesign that changed every URL without redirecting the old ones. None of these show up by eye. Each one has a free way to check for it, covered below.
By the numbers
- Design is the biggest single factor in whether a visitor trusts a site at all. Stanford's Persuasive Technology Lab analyzed over 2,500 comments from a 2,684-person study and found "Design Look" (layout, typography, font size, color scheme) made up 46.1% of all credibility comments, more than every other factor combined, including the actual information on the page. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
- Google downgraded intrusive interstitials in mobile search starting January 10, 2017. A pop-up, a splash page a visitor must dismiss, or a layout that buries real content below a banner can all count, with named exceptions for things like legally required age or cookie notices. GOOGLE DOCUMENTED
- Adobe itself ended Flash Player support on December 31, 2020, and started actively blocking Flash content from running in its own player two weeks later. Every major browser has disabled Flash since. A site still carrying Flash-built menus or animations from that era isn't just dated, those elements plainly don't run anymore. ADOBE DOCUMENTED
- More than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits were filed against U.S. businesses in 2025. Small and mid-sized businesses made up the majority of defendants, not just large retailers. The build habits that cause these suits, missing alt text, no keyboard navigation, low text contrast, are largely the same ones that keep Google from reading a page correctly. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
The five design mistakes that actually cost rankings, in order of how often we find them
- Real text replaced with a graphic. A headline, a list of services, or a phone number designed as an image looks identical to a visitor and is blank to Google. Google's own image SEO guidance is clear that alt text and surrounding page text are what it uses to understand an image, not text rendered inside the picture itself. The fix is almost always free: swap the graphic for real HTML text styled to look the same.
- A JavaScript-only navigation menu with no real links underneath. Google processes a page in three stages, crawling, rendering, then indexing, and the render stage is slower and gets less of Google's attention than a plain HTML link does. A menu that only works after a script runs, with no
<a href>links in the raw HTML, can leave entire service and location pages undiscovered. View the page's source (not the rendered page) and check whether the menu's links are actually there. - Pop-ups or interstitials that cover the content on a phone. A newsletter pop-up, a chat prompt, or a promo splash screen that a mobile visitor has to dismiss before reaching the actual page is exactly what Google's January 2017 mobile interstitial change targeted. A small, easily closed banner is fine; a full-screen takeover before any content loads is not.
- Leftover Flash-era build habits. Flash itself is gone, blocked by every major browser since early 2021, but the template thinking it encouraged often isn't: whole navigation menus or galleries built as a single non-text graphic, with no real headings or links anywhere on the page. If a site was last rebuilt before 2015, this is worth checking directly.
- A redesign that changed every URL with no 301 redirects. Launching a new design on a new URL structure, without mapping each old page to its new address, tells Google every old page is simply gone, taking its accumulated ranking history with it. A separate post digs into exactly what a redesign needs to preserve rankings, linked below.
What's free to check yourself right now
| Mistake | Free way to check it |
|---|---|
| Text baked into a graphic | Try to select the text on the page with your mouse. If you can't highlight it, it's an image. |
| JavaScript-only navigation | Right-click the page and choose "View Page Source." Search the raw HTML for your menu's link text. |
| Intrusive mobile pop-ups | Open the site on a phone, on mobile data rather than office Wi-Fi, and watch what loads first. |
| Leftover Flash-era elements | Check the site's last rebuild date. Anything untouched since before 2015 is worth a direct look. |
| Broken redirects after a redesign | Google's free Search Console will show a spike in 404 errors right after a launch date. |
Three real doubts about this
A modern-looking template can still hide text inside a graphic, run its menu entirely in JavaScript, or show a full-screen promo on mobile. None of those are about how dated a site looks. The checks above take five minutes and don't depend on the site's age at all.
No. Site speed is about how fast a page loads, covered in a separate guide linked below. This page is about whether Google can actually read the page's content and links once it does load, a different failure mode with a different fix.
Because the redesign itself is where the biggest risk on this list shows up. A new design launched without mapping every old URL to its new address is the single most common way a site loses ranking history overnight. Fix the habits now, carry them into the rebuild.
Questions we get
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my site's text is actually an image?
Try to select it with your mouse, the way you'd select a sentence to copy it. If your cursor just drags a box around it instead of highlighting individual words, that text is a picture, not real HTML text, and Google can't read it as a word-for-word answer to a search.
Is a JavaScript menu always a problem?
No. The problem is a menu that has no real links in the page's raw HTML underneath the script. Google can process JavaScript, but it does so in a slower, separate rendering stage, so a menu with real <a href> links in the source code first, enhanced by JavaScript, is safe. View the page's source and search for your menu's text to check which kind yours is.
What counts as an "intrusive" pop-up versus an acceptable one?
Google's own 2017 guidance names the acceptable kinds directly: legally required notices like age or cookie consent, login dialogs, and small banners that are easy to dismiss and don't use much screen space. A full-screen takeover a mobile visitor has to close before reaching any content is the kind that can affect ranking.
We don't have any Flash on our site anymore, so is this section not relevant?
The Flash plugin itself has been blocked by every major browser since early 2021, so if it were still active you'd already know, nothing would display. What's worth checking instead is whether a site built in that era still carries the thinking Flash encouraged: a whole navigation bar or gallery built as one non-text graphic, with no real headings or links anywhere on the page.
What's the single biggest risk on this list?
A redesign that changes every URL without redirecting the old ones. It's the one mistake on this list that can erase years of accumulated ranking history in a single launch, rather than just limiting how much new ground a page can gain.
Can I fix any of these myself, or does it need a developer?
Checking for each mistake is free and doesn't require any technical skill, the table above shows exactly how. Fixing one, swapping a graphic for real text, adding real links under a JavaScript menu, or mapping old URLs to new ones in a redesign, touches the site's actual code or template, which is where most business owners bring in someone who builds sites for a living. That full build-and-fix service is covered on our website design & conversion page.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Google Images best practices: alt text and surrounding page text, not text rendered inside a picture, as what Google uses to understand an image.
- Google Search Central, Understand the JavaScript SEO basics: the three-stage crawl, render, and index process, and why a render-dependent page gets less of Google's crawl attention than plain HTML.
- Google Search Central, Helping users easily access content on mobile: the January 10, 2017 intrusive-interstitial mobile ranking change and its named exceptions.
- Adobe, Flash Player EOL General Information Page: the December 31, 2020 end-of-support date and the January 12, 2021 start of active content blocking.
- Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab (B.J. Fogg et al.), "How Do Users Evaluate the Credibility of Web Sites? A Study with Over 2,500 Participants", 2003: the 46.1% share of credibility comments attributed to visual design over information content. Flagged as pre-2014 research, with no comparably scaled public replication found since.
- UsableNet, 2025 digital accessibility lawsuit year-end data (reported via multiple independent legal-industry outlets, since UsableNet's own report is not independently fetchable in this environment): the 5,000-plus lawsuit count and the majority-small-and-mid-sized-business defendant finding.
The Stanford credibility study and UsableNet's lawsuit figures describe the general web, not home-service sites specifically. The underlying design-quality and accessibility problems they describe are the same ones that interfere with how Google reads a page.