Criteria

As people who show and sometimes breed Persian cats and have them available for sale, we will consider sites that we consider to be "hobby" sites. To us that means personal sites that have something for sale but have other substantive content. Pelaqita Persians considers hobby breeders of cats, dogs, etc. to be personal sites as long as they have the required number of pages of textual content. Pages that contain photos of the animals for sale, about us, etc. are not considered by us to be "Content".

Award Programs, whether stand alone or not, are also welcome to apply as long as the 5 pages of textual content requirement is met. Most APs can meet this requirement as most of them spend enormous amounts of time writing their criteria, evaluators background, mission and purposes statements, etc.

Since our award is content based it is important to see correctly spelled words. With the many spell check programs available nowadays there is really no excuse for spelling mistakes. There is nothing more irritating than reading something that interests you and being distracted by misspelled words.

A quality web site is one that is constantly changing, evolving or "under construction". Therefore, there should be no blank pages or pages with "under construction" type language.

When every page changes to a different background color, or every page changes to a font that is a different size, type or color, the site quickly becomes tiresome on the eyes. In our opinion, a quality site is one that is consistent throughout in its usage of fonts, text, colors, backgrounds, and navigation. Remember you are not just designing a site that makes sense to you, you should be designing a site that is easily navigated and viewed by the most people.

External links are those links that point your visitor to another site. External links are also known as "link exchanges" or "link" pages. A good web master checks his or her site's external links regularly to insure that they are working properly. Many web masters believe that when someone visits a site the purpose is to keep that person on that site. Therefore, it is a good practice to have all external links open in a new external window. In that way, once the person is done looking at that site, they can simply close that window and your site is still there available for them to continue viewing. A "new window" is a simple code that is inserted in the link code. Most often you would just add <target="_blank"> in the coding for the link.

However, it is good manners to inform your site visitors that by clicking any external links that they will be leaving your site and that a new window will open. You can do that by adding a "title" in the code along with the coding with the "alt", "height", and "width" codes. Something like "link will open in new external window".

We will be checking the links using Xenu, as well as other validators.

A meta tag is the coding that goes in the "head" section on each page of a site. Except for the title tag, the information contained in the head section of a web page are not normally seen by those viewing the pages. Meta tag information is commonly used to communicate information that a visitor will probably not be concerned with. However, meta tags, can tell a browser what "character set" to use or whether a web page is safe for viewing by all ages. Meta tags on a site are also covered under that site's copyright policy. Do not ever copy and use meta tags from some one else's site.

A html title tag isn't really a "meta" tag, but does appear in the head section of a web page. Every page should have a title tag as this information is very important to search engines. The title tag should be a short descriptive name for the page and you can also incorporate a few of the key words that describe what is on the page. For example, if the page is about nutrition and your site is about Persian cats, your title could read "Nutrition and the Persian cat". Additionally, most of the major search engines will use what is contain in your title tag as the title they use on their listings. You should NEVER use the same title on each and every page.

The use of ALT tags are important to those viewers that are sight impaired. They have software that allows them to "read" the page. In that way, when the software program gets to an image it can "read" it and this allows the impaired person to view what is on the page. ALT tags should be a description of the image. (i.e., German Shepherd puppy sitting in field of flowers). Page dividers and splash image should use the following ALT tag:    alt=""    

Having a statement that says when a site is updated tells the visitor how long since the site was changed. A good site shows regular maintenance and should reflect that it has been updated.

Typically information that is collected may be through forms, E-mail and may contain a site users name, and other identifying information. Also, the use of cookies or stat counters are devices that collect information. A good webmaster lets his or her users know what type of information is being collected about them. A privacy statement will include what type of information is collected, how it is collected, and how the information is intended to be used.

A copyright notice should be on all web sites. People who design web sites work incredibly hard and their efforts should not be copied by others. A copyright statement protects the information, code, text, graphics, photos, images, etc. on your site. If you use someone else's work, you should get their permission for that use and then credit them in your copyright statement. If you use someone else's text, code, graphics, etc. without permission, you have committed copyright infringement and your site will be disqualified.

Every page on your site should use the copyright symbol and correct verbiage to reflect that your site is copyrighted. This is in addition to your copyright statement page. The copyright symbol is    ©    Not all browsers support this symbol.

The correct verbiage is as follows: Copyright © 2001 - 2006 Site Name

Put the first year your site went live on the internet and then put the current year. Make sure to update the current year date at the end of each year to continue protecting your site.

Having a missing image (a red "x" where the image or graphic should be) is more often than not a failure to remember to upload the image to your server. I have done it in my haste to make a change to a page. Please check your pages for this type of error before applying for an award. Fixing this problem is a really simple way not to lose points or risk being disqualified. It would be a real shame for a great site to be disqualified just for this type of error. Additionally, this is another reason not to use an image that is hosted on someone else's site (even with permission). If their server goes down or they close down their web site, you will have the red "x" instead of the image.

A comet or cursor trailer is an effect that can sometimes be cute. In general, I do not mind it which is why this is not a disqualification. It is a 5 point deduction though. When one views a lot of sites (like someone who evaluates sites for awards), a cursor trailer or comet can sometimes become very annoying.

Having a site map on your site that is part of the main navigation menu is just part of providing your site user with an easier way to find particular pages. In our opinion, it is a must as it shows the intention of the web master/mistress of providing their site users with every tool possible in order to make their visit more enjoyable and user friendly.

Please note: If your site has an individual award page for each award received (i.e., having a page for 20 separate awards, and then having a page setting forth each award won and then providing a link to the individual page each award is on), we find it can make a Site Map too long and cumbersome. It is more appropriate to list the main award page on a Site Map and that way the user can go to that page and then choose to visit each and every page that you have an award on.

People visiting your site should be able to contact you. An E-mail link or other form of contact should be provided for the user's convenience on every page. It should be easily accessible and easily recognizable. There is nothing more frustrating as a user than to be on someone's site and not being able to figure out how to contact the owner or web master. Not having contact information on every page is a very easy way to lose viewers.

If your site uses a script to perform a function on your site (i.e., top of page links, page back links, and even the use of this popup window explanation), make sure they are working properly.

Many times on sites when you get to the bottom of the page, there is no navigation menu, so the viewer has to use the vertical scroll bar to cursor back up to the top of the page or to the navigation menu. I think having a "top of page", "back to top", etc. link is extending a courtesy towards your visitors. On especially long page (a page more than 3 screen page downs) should have a "top of page" link.

Many web designers maintain that is what a browser back button is for. Many others maintain that a web site should not rely on the browser for navigation of any kind. I like the convenience of using a site's own navigation for surfing their site. Therefore, if your site navigation is not created so that our evaluator(s) must use their browser back button in order to navigation your site it will earn your site deduction(s).   :-)

While I personally like the creativeness that it takes to create a Flash introduction, sometimes visitors may have time constraints and just want immediate access to your site's content.

Music is a pleasant and sometimes soothing addition to a site and its overall creativeness. However, a considerate webmaster offers its viewers the option of listening to the music the entire time they may be on the site. Please be considerate and have a clearly visible way to turn off the music on each page.