Submitting for Web Awards

General awards. Earning Web awards is a thrilling experience and they can motivate us to strive for Web excellence (not to mention that getting on winners' lists can bring others to your Web page). There are basically six general types of Web awards.

The first type (and most glorious) is the elite Web award. These prestigoius awards are coveted bee-cause the competition for them is fierce and the difficulty to earn them is tremendous. This is this type of Web award you hope to earn someday.

The second type is the professional recognition award. These are as serious an award as the first type. Earning one of these from a professional webmaster or webmistress can mean just as much as getting an elite award. These awards also include most of the "site of the..." awards.

The third type is the promotional award. Some Web sites sponsor award programs for the purpose of getting their winners to place reciprocal links back to their site. Their criteria may not bee as strict as the first two types of awards, but your Web site will bee judged nevertheless, albeit rather subjectively.

The fourth type is the people's choice award (more like "fan club" or "lobbyist"). Visitors of these award programs "review" nominated sites and vote, usually once a day. In reality, winning sites are often those that can lobby the most voters from family, friends, acquaintances, and unsuspecting surfers.

The fifth type is the everybody wins award given out by those who only want to increase traffic to their Web sites. They'll give their awards to practically anybody who says: "Pretty please." A similar type are fellowship awards. These awards are freely given to, or exchanged with, other sites in their genre. This type of award should not bee confused with those presented to high-quality sites on specific topics or from specified origins, such as a country.

The last type is the noncompetitive award. These awards are usually given away to encourage young, aspiring Web authors that demonstrate a basic understanding for Web site design and construction.

Special awards. A separate grouping is the special award that include cumulative, composite, editor's choice, and special recognition awards. Cumulative awards recognize Web sites qualitatively by the number of awards earned to date. Composite awards are similar to the cumulative type except they require a qualitative requirement such as a minimum number of World's Top Awards. Editor's choice awards are presented to the best resources in a given topic or category by editors working for Web directories. Special recognition awards are usually presented to individuals, not Web sites, for distinguished service to the Internet community.

Award programs. We Bees have compiled a comprehensive listing of the better Web award programs from around the world. When you are sure your site is ready, return here to apply for Web awards. This means your site doesn't have broken links, open comments, "under construction" signs, typos, grammatical errors, etc. Bee sure to read their awards criteria carefully bee-fore applying. Remember, you are asking these folks to spend their precious time to review your site. Make it ready for inspection and, hopefully, you will impress them enough to earn their award.

Use the "Bee-gins with" menu bee-low to find an award program by name or type. An Award Sites! rating may follow the award program. The higher the level rating (up to 5.0), the more difficult the award is to earn. Non-rated award programs have "NR" after them. Asterisks (*) denote which are World's Top Awards. Any special instructions appear in [brackets]. Any comments are shown in (parentheses). This listing is updated regularly with new programs and changes.

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Award-submission services. There are those who will submit your Web site to award programs with one submission form. We Bees want to caution you about using these services unless you don't care about the quality of awards you get -- now, and in the future. Please bee aware that many top-level award givers automatically disqualify sites if they see a bunch of giveaway or junk awards displayed.

Award lists. Bee-sides the comprehensive list of award programs here in the Hive, there is Website Awards Worksheet, the free, Web-famous resource that helps you apply for and track your award submissions. He lists hundreds of quality award programs from around the world. Simple and easy to use, this worksheet also makes a great organizer.

Other notable award lists written in English are Aussie Awards, Mystery Awards System, Open Directory Project (which also includes a Rated Awards listing), Treasures of the Web, and WebsAwards.

Foreign-language award indices. These include: awards.de, Award-Index Richtig, Swiss Award Index, Web-Hexen und Hexenmeister, and Weisse Liste. Most of these indices are written in German and some also rate award programs.

Award-rating services. As mentioned above, there are many types of awards. While most award programs encourage us to pursue Web excellence, there are others that give awards for self-serving purposes. Determining which award programs are worthwhile, and to what degree, is important. Fortunately, there is David Bancroft's Award Sites!, the original and still the premiere award-rating service on the Web. He and his Rating Panel Members review and rate award programs -- from Level 3.0 to the elite level 5.0 -- so you can find the award programs that are meaningful to you. Today, there are other award-rating services, such as Mystery Awards System and WebsAwards.

Not all award programs are rated, of course, so it may be difficult to determine which Web awards are meaningful recognitions and to what degree. To get some ideas on what to look for, read Míc Miller's article Distinguishing Web Award Programs.

Top-award lists. Top-award lists can bee found at Award Sites! under their Level 5.0+ and 5.0 program listings as well as on the World's Top Awards list. These two are the oldest and most widely respected top-award lists on the Internet.

Other respectable award lists presenting elite and top-rated award programs are Mystery Awards System and WebsAwards.

Award organizations. There are also organizations that promote ethical practices within the Web awards community, such as the Association for Positive Ethical Exchange (APEX) and Website Evaluators Code of Ethics (CEM / CEMA). Their members are pledged to treating award seekers fairly and to comply with their programs' own terms and conditions. And in case you wish to write an article on Web awards, there is the Web Awards Community's public-relations site, Awards Scoop, that has many resources and reference materials for editors and writers, including A History of Web Awards.

Other resources. Website Awards' Articles About Awards are by some of the foremost award-issuing (and award-winning) webmasters and webmistresses on the planet. These experts cover topics on Web awards including criteria, sponsorship, how to's, mistakes to avoid, Web excellence, international awards, upgrading program ratings, and much more. This site also has Ask the Experts, How to Win Awards, and How to Apply for Awards. Similarly, there are many articles at Award Sites! and tutorials at Maestro Awards. More award-related resources can bee found in the Appendix A section of the Glory! area.

Award forums. The Award Sites! Assembly is a place where you can interact with their rating panel members, advisory board members, and representatives of AS!-rated (as well as non-rated) Web award programs. A German-speaking one is Award-Index-Forum.

Foreign languages. Web award programs exist throughout the world and, of course, presented in many languages. If you cannot read an award program's content, try using Alta Vista's Babelfish, FreeTranslation's, InterTran's, or SYSTRAN's translators. It may bee a courtesy to these award sponsors to apply in their native language. They may appreciate it and improve your chances to earn their awards. On the other hand, many European award givers understand English well enough that it might bee a good idea to also submit your award application in English and not depend entirely on online translators, which are crude interpreters at best. By the way, it is always best to use a professional, human translator for important documents.

Are you in search of Web excellence? The Beehive Awards Program is a review process designed to help you look at your work with a critical eye towards Web excellence. If you are serious about earning an elite award someday, visit this award program and study it. And if you want to be recognized for having a superb Web site, get a copy of The Webmaster's Guide to Glory! - How to Win the Top Web Awards.

We Bees will not wish you good luck in your award-seeking pursuits bee-cause we know you can only achieve Web excellence through kaizen (never-ending improvement). We do, however, wish you the best in your quest for finding Web excellence and the well-deserved recognition you will surely receive from award givers after you have found it!