Award Philosophy:
When I started surfing the internet, the only pages I found that held my attention were those that allowed me to glimpse the way other people live or have lived, through their own words, whether it be through life stories, poetry, or online journals. I wanted to start awarding those pages which I found truly engrossing on a personal level.
Important Info:
I don't have a set number of awards I give out, I just award the pages I like. However, I only notify winners. I do not notify applicants who do not win. Don't take it personally and feel free to resubmit your page if you would like to be reconsidered for the award. Sometimes it can take a week or two for me to have time to get to see a page that has been submitted, so please be patient...it is usually safe to assume after about a month, though, that I have decided against awarding a site submitted if you haven't heard from me.
What I'm looking for: This is how I will judge your page:
No porn. Period.
That includes advertising banners for porn.
Your site must be personal in nature. Telling me where you live, how many kids you've got and who you like to chat with online are fine, but that's not going to get you this award. I am looking for in depth reading that will let me come away with a real sense of who you are.
Nice design. It will definitely help to have a nicely designed site. It doesn't mean you have to be a graphics whiz, just make your site look nice.
Easy navigation. If it is too confusing or takes me too long to find the section I'm searching for....about you, I'm not going to hang around.
Relatively fast load time. I am a patient soul, but if your page takes me too long to load, I'm leaving. I pay by the minute for online time, so I can't really afford to spend hours looking over a site. I normally don't look over an entire site anyway, just the part that interests me...the part about you! Graphics are great, I LOVE looking at beautiful graphics, but if you have to put a note on your page saying "Please wait for graphics to load, it takes a while but they're worth it!" then it's a pretty safe bet I'm not going to stick it out. Nothing personal, I do that with commercial sites, too!