I recently looked into applying for web awards. I saw them as a way to convey credibility to my customers and prospective buyers. After looking through many sites, it turns out there are an extremely large amount of award sites to choose from, but how many actually run a quality system of rating? Anyone can rate a site and hand out awards so what makes one site more credible than other? There are a few things to consider before you apply for an award or put an award on your site.

Criteria- Do you meet it? If your looking for a focused assessment of your site look for criteria that is limited to a specialized category of sites. Criteria that any Joe can meet doesn’t mean award is not credible, but wouldn’t you rather judges grading you against people in a similar field?

Scoring-Every award site implements a scoring system. It is usually easy to find and you should look this over. Then with this score sheet rate web award site! If they can’t stand up to their own scoring they aren’t one to choose. Another thing to look for on a score sheet is what is being rated and how. If this award site is rating based on only a few items on a scale from one to three, there will be little accuracy in assessment.

Judges-Look around a site for information on who is/are judging these sites. Read their bio(s), look at their site(s), and check their credentials. If you cannot locate judges’ information who(m) are you really dealing with? It could be a robot for all you know, that just hands out awards left and right.