Spread the website love.

We think that websites are awesome. They open our eyes, create communities, fuel new industries, answer burning questions, feed our brains, and delight us both with beautiful design and the wonderfully bizarre. We want to honor these gems and the passion and ingenuity of the people who create them.

What makes a website work? Well in our opinion the best websites combine smart design, functionality, great ideas, and most importantly, effectively achieve their purpose (be it educating the public on the genious of Proust or selling widgets from Indonesia). Finally, we take into consideration a nebulous concept we like to call website love. It is that special ingredient of passion & tireless efforts of website creators. It is the community that develops around many websites. It is fun and spirit and just plain cool.

Website Criteria

No sites with illegal content or questionable ethics.

No pornography.

No sites which violate copyrights of others.

We evaluate websites on the following:

• Aesthetics - Strength of Visual Design
  Basically we look for smart design, which is often beautiful but not necessarily so.

• Functionality - Ease of use
  This is a broad area. We look at how easy it is for different people to use the website. Is it accessible to the disabled? Will it work for people with older technology? Is it organized in a clear way? Does the website load quickly and without errors? Is the content presented in a web friendly way?
• Effectiveness - Ful lfillment of website's purpose
  If a website is creating a community to talk about frogs, how is it attracting frog lovers and fostering conversation and activity? If a website is selling real estate, how does it attract potential buyers and show off its properties?
• Innovativeness & Strength of Ideas - Creativity and novel problem solving.
  We think awards should be about the exceptional, and we want to honor websites that are especially innovative and have truly great ideas fueling them.
• Website Love
  We see website love in attention to detail, frequent updates, enthusiastic visitors & members, a spirit of fun & just plain coolness.

More in-depth description of website criteria

Website Awards

Websites can earn the following awards:

Overall Achievement Awards

• Best of the Best - Truly exceptional in all areas of website achievment
• Gold - Great across the board, and exceptional in some areas
• Silver - Good across the board, and great in some areas
• Bronze - Good across the board

Individual Area Achievement Awards

• Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design
• Outstanding Achievement in Functionality
• Outstanding Achievement in Website Effectiveness
• Outstanding Achievement in Creativity
• Achievement in Visual Design
• Achievement in Great Functionality
• Achievement in Website Effectiveness
• Achievement in Creativity

And finally...

• Website Lovemonkey - This is for websites that may not be perfect, but heck, we really feel the love.

Read about how awards are determined in more depth.

Website Review Process

• Nomination
  First a website is nominated, either by the site owner or a site visitor who thinks it is worthy of consideration.
• Site owner submits website information
  Next the site owner must submit information about the site including the purpose of the site and the reasons for design decisions. At this time the site is added to the nominee list.
• Site recieves at least 10 votes
  Once the site receives 10 votes, it will be entered into the review queue.
• Site is visited by review panel
  Once in the review queue, the site is visited by members of the review panel who will rate the site on the above criteria.
• Award determination and notification
  After ten reviews, the ratings are tallied and the site owner is notified what, if any, awards the website receives

More detail

Site Nomination

Anyone can nominate a website, however in order to review a website we need site owner, webmaster, or webdesigner participation. Therefore, you must provide us with an e-mail address for one of the above.

We request that you not nominate a website more than once, unless the website undergoes very substantial changes.

Does my website have to be amazing to win an award?

We want to spread the love as much as possible, and recognize both small and large accomplishments. Some of our awards have an extremely high standard, like the Best of the Best Award, but others are a bit more forgiving. No matter what, if you are serious about your website, it is worthwhile applying just to get feedback from our knowledgable and talented panel.

Participate

There are several ways that you can participate in the awards process.

• Nominate Worthy Websites
• Vote for Nominated Sites
  You can help nominated sites get the ten votes they need to be put into the review queue. Just visit the nominated sites page and vote for the ones you feel deserve to be reviewed.
• Join our Review Panel
  Site owners who win a silver idea, golden idea, or an individual outstanding achievement award are automatically able to participate in the review panel. We are also happy to have web professionals join the panel. Apply to join the review panel.