Number 10 has modified their site to use wordpress, and it does look good.
At first.
Unfortunately, they’re not using the full power of wordpress - I note in particular that comments are switched off for everything at the same time that they’re talking about ‘dialogue’.
What I find particularly amusing is that the first, most obvious link on their homepage, which promises us "Number10TV" and the ability to "watch the PM’s introductory film." gives this result:
I think the phrase they need is ‘Whoops’.
Epic Fail. Says it all really.
Original heads-up from ocaoimh.ie
When starting from scratch (as opposed to migrating a site over from another URL or software system), there is really little excuse for broken links in wordpress, especially when you’re paying developers to manage it for you. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, manage it quite comfortably…. and there is especially no excuse for a broken link on something that takes up half the screen on the homepage - the first thing people see.
Update: The 404 has been fixed.
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Just to clarify: the site wasn’t built from scratch - it was migrated from a CMS that was a good few years old, with 10,000+ pages in it. But the 404 you mentioned was nothing to do with that; as I understand it, the team hit a problem integrating some of the third-party services they’re using (some of which won’t be immediately obvious).
It goes without saying, nobody is happy for there to be such prominent errors on launch day. But whilst WordPress is the platform on which it’s all built, there’s a lot more going on besides, for obvious reasons. It’s not entirely fair to compare it to a basic five-minute install.
Fair comment. I stand chastened. However, the most prominent link being a 404 was still not great.