Placeholder content on live websites: the leftovers that make a site look unfinished
Templates and generated drafts ship with stand-ins: Latin filler text, 555 phone numbers, example.com addresses, links that point to #, sample names and stock reviews. Each one tells a visitor nobody finished the site. A ten-minute search for a known list of leftovers, done before launch and after every big change, catches nearly all of them.
Why stand-ins survive to launch
Stand-in content is useful while designing: it shows how long a paragraph might be, where a phone number sits, what a card looks like with a name in it. It survives because it looks finished at a glance. A paragraph of pseudo-Latin has the right shape, a 555 number has the right number of digits, and a link styled as a button looks clickable whether or not it goes anywhere. Nobody reads a page they've seen fifty times, so the leftovers are found by visitors instead.
AI builders add a new source. A model asked for a contact section without a real address will invent a plausible one, and one asked for reviews will write them. Those are worse than obvious filler, because they look real.
The leftovers to search for
| Leftover | Search for | Why it's there |
|---|---|---|
| Latin filler text | "lorem", "dolor sit", "consectetur" | The standard dummy text in design tools and templates |
| Fictional phone numbers | "555", "(555)", "000 0000" | US films and TV use 555 numbers; templates copy them |
| Example email addresses | "@example.", "name@", "you@" | example.com and its siblings are reserved for documentation |
| Dead links | href="#", empty href, javascript: | Buttons styled before their destination existed |
| Sample names and addresses | "John Doe", "Jane Smith", "123 Main", "Acme" | Default content in components and form demos |
| Bracketed instructions | "[your", "Your company name here", "Insert" | Notes to the editor that were never replaced |
| Invented social proof | Quotes with first names only, round numbers of customers | Templates and generated drafts fill review sections |
| Stock image file names | "image1.jpg", "placeholder", "hero-bg" in alt text | Alt text left as the file name |
The reserved example domains are a formal convention: RFC 2606 sets aside example.com, example.net and example.org, plus the .example top-level domain, for documentation. That makes them safe in tutorials and wrong on a live contact page, because mail sent there goes nowhere.
How to search a site in ten minutes
- Search the source, not the screen. View the page source or the exported HTML and search for each term in the table. Alt text, button labels and hidden mobile content only show up there.
- Click every button and link in the header, hero, footer and cards. A link that scrolls to the top of the page is usually
href="#". - Send every form to yourself and check where the message lands.
- Ring the phone number and email the address on the contact page. It's the fastest check that they're real.
- Read the reviews and team section aloud. If you can't name the real person behind each quote, remove it.
- Repeat after redesigns. New sections arrive with new stand-ins.
Dead links on a website: what counts
href="#"jumps to the top of the page and does nothing useful.- An empty
hrefreloads the page. - A
#sectionlink to an id that doesn't exist silently does nothing. javascript:links do nothing without script and are a security smell.- Links to other sites that have moved or closed return errors. These need a separate link checker, because the page itself looks fine.
For more on finishing a site properly, see the website launch checklist and accessible link text.
Placeholders in Anticode
Two Anticode checks look for leftovers. The Critic, on every build, flags placeholder phone numbers such as 555 numbers, flags dead links (an empty href, a bare # or a link to a section that isn't on the page), and includes Latin filler in its stock-phrase check. Since 23 October 2026 the publish gate also refuses to publish pages with placeholder text: Latin filler, to-do and to-be-decided notes left for the editor, "your company name here" and bracketed "[your …]" prompts, example.com, .org and .net email addresses, 555 numbers and "123 Main Street"-style addresses. On pages, it also refuses empty links, bare # links and javascript: links.
The design engine writes copy about the business you describe, but facts it can't know, such as opening hours, prices and the reply time in the hero, may be filled with sensible examples until you replace them. Read every fact before publishing, and replace the reviews section with real quotes or remove it.
Questions people ask
Why do websites have 555 phone numbers?
Because templates borrow the fictional numbers used in US films and TV. They should never reach a live site.
What does a link to # do?
It jumps to the top of the page. On a live site it's almost always a button whose real destination was never added.
How do I find dead links before launch?
Search the source for href="#" and empty links, click everything by hand, and run a link checker for links to other sites.