1. The site has, as its primary purpose, the benefit of some portion of the genealogical community and is provided without fee or other obligation. In other words, its primary purpose is other than the promotion of a commercial product or service and the genealogical community is not a secondary or incidental audience for the site.
   
   
2. The site has content that is unique, clear, informative, useful, and well documented (e.g., clearly defined source citations). Emphasis will be placed on original content, supported as necessary by relevant links to other sites. Excessive reliance on links will be considered a negative factor as will a large number of links to pay sites.
   
   
3. The site is well organized in design, including navigation and visual appearance. Pages must be easy to navigate. One should always be able to get "home" and find the email address of the owner without having to search for it.
   
   
4. The site follows best web page design and maintenance practices including being accessible to all major browsers, those with slower Internet connections and the disabled, and having essentially no broken links to other websites. Additionally, there will be no links to images on servers other than your own unless links are a requirement of the site where the image resides.
   
   
5. The site is easy to read (both in color and text size), graphically pleasing, avoids excessive use of "bells and whistles" that slow down loading and distract the user, and has images that show up. Sites that employ "pop-ups" will be allowed; however, the existence of "pop-ups" will be considered as a negative factor during the review.
   
   
6. The site will contain no pornography, racial or ethnic slurs, or any other derogatory material except as presented in original documents that pertain strictly to legitimate genealogy research and historic content (e.g., slavery). In addition, appropriate care should be given to respecting the privacy of living individuals and the sharing of sensitive information.
   
   
7. If the site contains text, photos, images, or any other material that is copyrighted, this should be indicated along with a statement that permission has been granted for its inclusion.
   
   
8. If the site uses frames, a no-frames alternative should be provided. Failure to provide this alternative will not automatically exclude a site; however, it will be considered as anegative factor during the review.
   
   
9. If the site has background music, a means of turning it off should be provided. Failure to provide this will not automatically exclude a site; however, it will be considered as a negative factor during the review.
   
   
10. Sites that are essentially lead-ins to numerous other sites (e.g., state GenWeb sites) will generally not be considered since its unlikely that all of the included sites are worthy of the award and our goal is to recognize individual webmaster excellence.
    
    
11. Government sites will generally not be included. While some sites provide excellent genealogy data that may be worthy of the award, they are usually part of a major site that deals principally with other aspects of government and, in general, have not been developed with a primary goal of providing support to genealogy research. Exceptions to this guideline may be made if a government site, in its entirety, is truly outstanding and developed principally for use by genealogists and historians.
    
    
12. While not an integral part of these guidelines, consideration may be given to the standards and guidelines described in the NGS GUIDELINES at https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/free-resources/guidelines/
    
    
13. One site will be selected for the award each month and the next five sites receiving the most votes will be retained for consideration in the following month. Sites that fail to receive an award and are not retained for consideration will not be resubmitted for a year, and then only if there has been a substantial change in quality or content.
    
    

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