One Bad Apple, Unfortunately, Really Does Spoil The Whole Bunch

Donny and his sibs were probably right about one bad apple not spoiling the whole bunch, girl. But on the Web, users make snap judgments — so one mistake, and can throw the whole site into question. (Kinda like a spelling error on a resume: probably doesn’t make you any worse at driving snow plows, but the HR folks will toss you in the no-thanks pile anyway.)

To site visitors, many things can trigger this judgment: broken links, missing images, poor design, dated content, spelling errors.

I guess site visitors are looking for clues that help them measure esoteric values like “quality” or “validity.” When they see a mistake, they extrapolate. That can be very dangerous.