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Eligibility
and General Criteria
Disqualifications/What
We Do Not Want to See
We
want to evaluate and award your site. That's the purpose of our
program. In an effort to save time and establish your eligibility for
our award we will first review what is not acceptable to win our
award. If any of these items apply, we request that you forgo the
application process and apply when you have met our criteria.
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To be able to evaluate your site, it must be in English, Dutch,
German, hosted by a paid server using a level domain name (i.e.,
.Com, .Net., .Org, etc). Discretionary exceptions will be made for
non-profit religious and military sites.
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We do not review marketing sales sites, free, or MSN, Yahoo,
Geocities group sites.
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A quality site should not be a collection of links, or marketing referrals.
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A thoughtful webmaster will thoroughly read our criteria and
complete the AP application in its entirety.
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A responsible Webperson will ensure that their site is family
friendly and open for all ages. A family safe designation should be
clearly visible on your site.
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A Webperson that is proud of their accomplishments should have a
separate page where the awards you have won are displayed. If this is
your first award we recommend that you have a designated page to
honor your achievements.
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We only accept applications from the website owner or authorized
manager that has attained the age of 18.
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A qualifying site will contain a unified theme (background,
fonts, graphics) and have a minimum of eight pages of intellectual
content that is consistent throughout the site. A site displaying a
collection of photos, friendships, testimonials does not qualify as
intellectual content.
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A skillful webperson will always add a 'skip intro button' to a
flash page with long loading time, and if music is present, a button
to turn it off.
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A quality designed site should be free of 404 errors (Page Not
Found) and not contain 'Under Construction' or 'Coming Soon' notices.
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A good Webperson will ensure that there are no more than three
broken internal links on your site; we limit external links to five.
Use a link
checker to verify broken
links. Internal links should open always open in the same browser
window, and external links in a new window (except strictly XHTML
valid sites).
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Sites displaying obvious copyright violations without due
credits or permission will not be reviewed. See Copyright.
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A well designed website should have ALT and Meta tags on all
graphics and images to comply with Accessibility Guidelines.
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A thoughtful Web Designer will not disable my right mouse
cursor. It should be possible to see the source code.
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A site with a good design should have a copyright
statement that is visibly present on your site. This tells us that
everything is of your own making, or with permission of use.
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We ask that you provide a privacy policy on your site if you
collect information on
your visitors, and what you do with it. An informed Webperson should
know that a COPPA
statement is required (US sites only) if you collect personal data
from minors 13 years of age and younger.
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As a responsible site owner you know that it should be possible
to visit all parts of your website without using a password, or
membership registration.
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Sites will not be reviewed if they contain pornographic
material, promote hate or contain content this is not family friendly.
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You know as a responsible Webperson, that any known applicant
that has a history of inappropriate conduct with this program or any
AP or evaluator that we may be affiliated with will be disqualified
for consideration.
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If you feel that these disqualifiers do not apply, please
proceed to our general criteria.
General
Criteria
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Does your site exhibit artistic talent in design, creativity, and
offer a minimum of eight pages of quality content? Then you are
welcome to apply.
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Is the purpose of your site clearly defined and have a unified theme?
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Do your pages show a high level of design that provides easy
navigation, friendly use, and optimal download time of less than 90
seconds on a 56K modem?
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Is
the overall layout pleasing to the eye and make good use of space on
each page?
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Do you use backgrounds and fonts that are clearly readable that
lend a concept or theme that enhance your subject matter?
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Is your site free of horizontal scrolling at 1024 or 800 resolution?
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Is a menu and contact accessible on all pages of your site?
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Does your site contain a site map? This provides easy navigation
in viewing extensive websites.
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Do you have have 'Up to top' buttons on long pages?
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Have you tested your pages for correct spelling?
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If the criteria is not clear to you, please feel free to contact
us with your questions.
Criteria-How
We
Judge Your
Website
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Our evaluation is based on a point scoring system (20 points for
design; 20 points for layout; 20 points for graphic/images; 40 points
for content; possible bonus points: 10). See Scoring
for additional information.
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To win our Gold award you need to achieve a point score of
96-100; Silver 86-95; Bronze 70-85; Merit 60-69 points. View
Awards.
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We suggest that you take the self
test prior to applying. NAP
code billy.
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Applicant sites will be judged in accordance with our criteria
and Code
of Ethics.
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Upon submission of your site by way of application or email, you
will receive an acknowledgement that we
have received your application. If you do not receive the email
within 24 hours, please resubmit the application.
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By submitting your site to NAP, you agree to allow us to post
the status/winning URL on our 'Winners Page'. See Privacy
Statement.
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If you fail to win our award at this time, you are
welcome to resubmit your application after 60 days, only if you have
made significant changes and improvements to your site.
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Applicants will be notified of award decision and feedback
within 21 days. Should there be a delay, you will be notified.
Feedback applies to Silver, Bronze, Merit & Other only.
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If you win our award, we prefer but don't require that it be
linked back to our site. You agree not to resize or alter the award.
If requested, we will be happy to resize if for you. All awards are
personalized with a laudation.
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Winning applicants agree to notify us of any URL changes or site closures.
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Failure to win our award is only by reason of failure to read
and meet our criteria.
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If you do not win our award, or are dissatisfied with our
decision, you are welcome to contact us with your reasons (in a
polite manner).
Do
not send nasty emails or contact third parties with your displeasure
or site criticisms. Read
the Creed.
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If you are in compliance with our criteria, please proceed to
our application.
Best
wishes and Good Luck. Many thanks for the honor to evaluate your site.
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