Seal of Approval Nominee Criteria

Believe it or not, award program owners have a high respect for applicants who fit the description above. The procedure of evaluating sites would be much more efficient if even 50% of applicants practiced this courtesy. If you are not approved for an award by a given award site, no one knows the efforts you made in your attempt to qualify for that award. This is what the UWSAG Seal of Approval Program is all about. It recognizes your determination to read and understand criteria for all award programs you apply for. This is regardless of whether you won their award or not.

Seal of Approval Nominee Criteria ("SOA")

What do you need to do extra to receive be a SOA Nominee? If you fit the description above, you have already met the most important criteria of this program. See a detailed description of the guidelines this program requires below. The purpose of this program is not to evaluate sites, but those who own them. You must meet disqualifications as listed below;

• Applications from anyone under the age of 18 will not be accepted.
• Sites with any kind of copyright infringement will not be accepted.
• Sites who are stealing other person's bandwith will not be accepted.
• Sites not in English or German will not be accepted. (online translators are not accepted).
• Sites that do not have a separate awards received page will not be accepted.
• Sites with unsuitable content are not eligible. This includes any site that contains content not considered family safe for viewing. (porn, hate-messages, ...)

As a holder of the UWSAG Seal of Approval Nominee Badge, you are required to abide by these guidelines to receive nominations. UWSAG rated programs will nominate your site if they judge you have followed these guidelines when applying for their award.

Reading Criteria Thoroughly

• Read ALL criteria from beginning to end.
  Many programs share similar criteria, so it may be tempting to gloss over. This can result in missing critical criteria unique to that award program.
• Follow the sequence steps the award program has laid out for you.
  They do this for a purpose; to help you understand what is required to win their award. Starting in the middle or even skipping sequences can cloud the message the award giver is trying to convey.

Criteria Clarification

If there is a certain criteria you do not understand, send that site an email for clarification. Do this before applying for their award. Once you have their reply and you are satisfied with the clarification, return to that award program and review that part of the criteria.

Use Self Tests

If an award program provides a self test page, apply it to your site with an objective eye. Or, have a friend score your site using the given award site's self test. Again, they provide this useful tool for a purpose. Make the necessary improvements on your site that will give you a higher score before applying.

Useful Descriptions

When entering the description of your site in application, do not add statements like "I deserve your award because my site is really cool." Give a brief and useful description of your site with interesting highlights.

Email Courtesy

If you are not approved, do not send negative or bitter remarks to the award program owner. If the wait time period the award program gave has passed and you have not received an award, return to that site to read all criteria again. Scrutinize each criteria condition and apply it to your site. If you truly feel your site is within a given award site's approval window, send an email stating your case.

Patience Required

You need to allow the UWSAG Award Program owner extra time for any replies or nominations. A lot is asked of you in order to display this badge. The same applies to UWSAG rated programs. If a given program states a 30 day wait period, count on a few days more added to that.

To conclude these guidelines, be consistent in following them for all awards you apply for. The UWSAG rated award sites should have a place for you to indicate that you are a UWSAG SOA Nominee in the application form or email. Be sure to check this or indicate this in the description section. Using this formula, you should soon see nominations being placed for your site on the Nominee List.

Site Banning

Anyone who falsely displays any of the badges will be permanently banned from applying or rejoining the program. There will be no warning notifications before your site is permanently banned.

Any authorized award seeker who displays the wrong badge will be permanently banned from the program. For example, you have 10 nominations and you are displaying the Gold SOA Badge which requires 50 nominations. There will be one warning notification to display the correct badge.

Revoking Your Badge

If you are listed as a UWSAG SOA Nominee and you quit practicing the guidelines, your site will be removed. This will be decided after three UWSAG rated program owners have reported your abuse.

Application

It is critical that you read all the above criteria to ensure a successful rate of nominations. Also review the UWSAG Rating Criteria to see what it is expected of them.

If you are approved as a UWSAG SOA Nominee, you will receive an email reply within 1-2 weeks. If you are not approved, you may re-apply in 90 days. Be sure to re-read all nominees criteria and guidelines first.

The SOA Nominee Badge must be displayed according to the SOA Badge Guidelines.

Click the email button below to apply. It will enter UWSAG Nominee Application in the subject field. Be sure to include the following information:

Webmaster Name
Site name
Web address (URL)
E-mail address
Date of birth

Be sure to review the privacy policy in regards to your personal information protection.

Your are encouraged to apply for awards from Award Programs listed in our Hall of Awards. Only an Award Program that is currently holds a UWSAG Rating is qualified to vote for your website should you be accepted in the Nominee Program.

Before Applying to be a UWSAG SOA Nominee ensure you have the following;

A Section for "Awards Received"

The link to your "Awards Received" page is easily found

Once you received the e-mail confirming your acceptance in the program, you must go to the Badges page and download the SOA Nominee Badge. Once the presence of the badge is verified, your site name will appear on the Seekers List shortly. Once you are listed, you can then start receiving nominations.

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