The state of websites? Too many redirects occurred

There’s an independent builders merchant near me that I try to use instead of the big national chains. I was wondering what they had in stock, so had a quick search for their website.

Search term: Chalford building supplies. Results:

  1. A directory listings website.
  2. Their Facebook page.
  3. An unrelated Cotswold building supplies company.
  4. Their Companies House listing.
  5. And then some more directories.

No website link.

Reluctantly, I tried their Facebook page in search for a website link, but found their Linktree instead, with an enormously long and nasty looking tracking link from Facebook…

A mobile Safari browser screen shot of the Chalford Building Supplies Linktree webp page saying "An independent builders merchant with branches in Chalford, Glos & Calne, Wilts." along with their two branch phone numbers and email addresses, and their Ebay link juste visible behind two text calls to action to join Linktree.

This page provides:

  1. Their basic contact details (not their actual address, though).
  2. Links to their LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and eBay.
  3. Along with a few third party partner giveaway / completion pages.
  4. AND by my count, three separate calls to action / adverts for Linktree.

No website link.

I copied the chalfordbuilding.co.uk URL from the end of the email address they list on their Linktree, and ended up (as you’ll see if you try) at a seemingly dead domain admin page, with only a mobile safari message saying:

Safari can’t open the page because too many redirects occurred.

Following my last post around the theme of websites being too hard. This is quite a case study. I’m not bashing the business. If anyone, I’m bashing us. UCD and old web types. We didn’t make the independent and owned internet easy enough.

The ease of social media platforms and products collectively won. Including one that is, essentially, a mini website that you don’t own, which lets you link to the other websites that you don’t own, while advertising itself to your entire audience (rather than, so it seems, being bothered to advise you to add the actual address of your shop).

One last bit on Linktree. When I say “Us. UCD and old web types”, I’m very firmly including the likes of Squarespace and WordPress.com. They’ve been worst of all at actually encouraging people to create websites in easy enough ways, and preventing their markets from being eaten by ‘non-website’ platforms and products.

The existence of posts like How to do Linktree on Squarespace and How to Create Your Own Linktree in Squarespace and others like them, reveal how contemporary digital service providers get it. They understand that people find it easier to use Linktree to link their socials together – including a link to the their own website – rather than thinking to create a links page on that website.