The criteria of "not under construction" is a little vague and could give you some trouble. All good sites are ALWAYS under construction. The web is a dynamic place and static, unchanging sites quickly die. Generally, this is interpreted to mean, "it's not obvious that your site is under construction". Signs which read "under construction" are virtually always an immediate flunk. Be careful with criteria of "no broken links". Do you mean your going to check every single link on every page? That could be quite a task! Or do you mean only internal links - still, check them all could be a huge undertaking. Perhaps you just mean "everything that I click on works."

And that's how it works ... you look through site and compare it to each and every one of your criteria. Keep a checklist and mark passes and flunks (unless one flunk means "no award", in which case you don't need a list). If site has too many flunks, it does not get award.

All right, what do you do if you run across a site which meets your criteria but which you find morally reprehensible? It you subscribe to theory of ethical awards programs, you grant award - and then you update your criteria. You could even adjust your criteria to say "no sites which are morally reprehensible to me" if you want. Or you could get more specific and say "No sites which promote animal cruelty".

Remember to think of your criteria as a sort of contract with people who submit their sites for awards. You are explaining them what you are looking for. Presumably, they read your criteria and only submit their sites if they believe that they pass. (This is often not true - most award submitters really never read criteria, but lack of ethics on one person's part does not imply that lack of ethics is okay).

Should you notify people who do not win your award? NEVER. Let me be fully and completely clear about this - NEVER UNDER ANY CONDITIONS, WHETHER REQUESTED OR NOT, SEND BACK CRITICAL COMMENTS TO ANYONE WHO HAS APPLIED FOR YOUR AWARDS PROGRAM. NEVER. After all, if you apply your criteria to letter it should be obvious why site didn't win award - it didn't meet criteria.

There is nothing more devastating to a webmaster than getting back critical comments, especially when those comments are not anticipated. It's one thing to be in a classroom environment and receive feedback, it's entirely a different matter to have a professional webmaster tell you your site is horrible or even that "navigation needs work".

6. Don't overwhelm with too many links

Keep links to a minimum on your navigation bar - at most nine. In fact, keep links to a minimum all across your site. Don't overwhelm your visitor with too many choices... gently, but firmly guide them towards your "action pages" (order page, newsletter subscription page, etc.).

7. Remove banners (from homepage at least)

I've removed all banner ads from my Web site. In my opinion they just take up space, make pages load slower, and look rather ugly... without doing any good. You might feel that eliminating banners might be too drastic a move for yourself, but let me ask you this: how often do YOU click on banner ads?

Note: Definitely remove banners from your homepage. The job of your homepage is to get visitors interested in your site and explore deeper, not to display banner ads which take visitors away.

8. Ask for a bookmark

Put up a simple attentive graphic that asks people to bookmark your site. You'd be surprised how many people will listen.

9. Open external links in a new window

In your tag, simply put TARGET="new". This will open link in a new window. When your visitors are done and close that window, they'll return back to your site. The full HTML looks like this:

click here

(Note: contents within TARGET can be anything - doesn't have to be "new").

10. Use pop-ups on exit

This is a technique I've used with great success on my own site. Set up some JavaScript code that opens a pop-up window when a visitor LEAVES your homepage, where you offer a subscription to your ezine. This wont annoy them as an on-entry pop-up would, and will reclaim a lot of visitors that would have just drifted away had it not been for pop-up. I really recommend you use a cookie to prevent pop-up window loading for repeat visitors. Go to any JavaScript resource site and you'll find cut-and-paste code you can use on your own site.