C r i t e r i a   P a g e s

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• Easy to read font. The font should not be too large, but at the same time, not tiny. It should be easy to read for visually impaired people (good contrast with the background) Likewise, do not weary your visitor’s eyes with "CoOl WrItiNg", blinking or colorful text. Text written on an animated background, even if it's a not some heavy animation, is still very annoying to read, especially if you offer a lot of text.

• No forced downloads. If your website requires to download something in order to view your website (except java or flash player), that means it does not have easy accessibility. We wouldn't want to to see a cursor trailer, comet cursor or any not-commonly used plug-ins.

• Flash and HTML version. If your website is based fully on Flash design, we would expect to see a bare bone HTML version. Some visitors may not have flash installed, some are still using dial-up connection (yes, there are some survivors out there), and some prefer to browse the site without having to wait while every page is loading. Moreover, we cannot evaluate Flash code for accessibility and accurateness. We do allow, however, flash elements inside the design, such as header, splash page, etc -- as long as it does not affect the validation.

• Top level domains and free hosts. We will review personal and non-profit homepages regardless them been hosted on a free server with a subdomain, or a paid server with a top-level domain. In other words, chances of websites with free sub domains do not decrease.

• Advertising, banners and links. Websites, hosted on a free server, mostly "suffer" from big forced ads, banners and pop-ups. This will be acceptable and will not affect the evaluation, as long as the advertising do not blink or dominate the design of your site and are of a decent nature. As of September 2006, we will review non-profit as well as commercial sites on an equal basis.

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• Above 85% of self-built content. Please do not apply if you have created your website using a ready template. You must build the design, code, CSS and graphics yourself, and not to use online site-builders (Bravenet, Yahoo, 50megs, etc). Taking ready textures, backgrounds, buttons, deciders, fonts etc, is excluded, that is what you have up to 15% for.

• Credits given. If you use someone else's material, whether it was a copyright, taken by permission, or pictures that require authorization, the credits should be given to those sites. If you have a permission to use copyright material - find a place in your website to mention it.

• Frequent updates. Please revise and update your website at least 12 times per calendar year. When we come to evaluate your webiste, we would want to see that it has been updated at least during the past month. That means you also should find a place to mention, when was the page last revised.

• Correct use of java alphabets and scripts. Prior to application, please make sure that all your scripts work properly. DHTML, Flash, php, Java and other scripts should all work smoothly (without freezing the browser). I suggest to test them in different browsers and see if they display correctly (DHTML scripts are often incompatible with all browsers).

• All pictures should be relevant to the main theme. Do not place "beautiful" graphics, just because you like them, if they have no connection to the main idea of the page.