CPSnet Web Awards Program, awards for sites skies above.

Sections

News

» Speak...
2005-07-08, Awarded "Best Award Graphic" by AFA
We are proud to announce that the HITSASeal was selected as the "Best Award Graphic" by AFA, for the month of July of 2005. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour! More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2005-06-22, Listed #2 among 31,000 web sites at Silktide SiteScore
With a rating of 9.5 (in 10 possible), the CPSnet Web Awards attained the second position at SiteScore's TOP 750, the best 750 from about 31,000 web sites tested until this date. Silktide SiteScore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible a website is. The entire testing process is handled by advanced computer software. SiteScore also gathers user feedback on all the websites rated, to help judge how appealing a design is. SiteScore rates all websites on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). Scores are broken down into 5 categories: Marketing, Design, Accessibility, Experience and User Feedback.
2005-06-07, listed at "Design Snack"
Design Snack is a database of websites rated based on the quality of their design and presentation. Its unique rating scale uses "cookies" and a site can get anywhere from 0-3 cookies, 3 being the highest. The CPSnet Web Awards were rated with "One Cookie" and listed under the "Award Sites" section of the portal.
2005-05-15, rated 6 by EUTODA
We are proud to announce that our program is now one of the few Web awards programs to achieve the prestigious level 6 at EUTODA, the Academy of Fine Awards. To all EUTODA' staff our sincere thanks for this honour!
2005-02-02, recognized as a 5+ Elite Award by Award Sites!
As it states at Award Sites!, "In recognition of owner, Carlos Simões, for his efforts going well beyond his award program in 'bettering the net through excellence!'". Needless to say that we at the CPSnet Web Awards are honoured by this outstanding distinction. Thank You AS! and thank you all the awardmasters and applicants that helped building this program!
2005-01-16, selected the Site Of The Year 2004!
It is that time of the year again, when we at the CPSnet Web Awards select the best site of the previous year. And this time, our panel of invited judges and our permanent review team have selected Tim's Spider Corner as the Best Site Of The Year 2004! Congratulations Tim Beylemans, for your outstanding website! Tim's Spider Corner is an educational site for all spider fans that addresses the conservation of nature. You will find bird eating spider information, as well as an assortment of pictures, handling tips, resource links, a spider knowledge quiz, and the complete anatomy of a bird eating spider.
2005-01-09, awarded the "Humanity Award 2005" by the The Rose Awards:
"We are very proud for being granted this distinction that it is given out to... Webmasters/webmistresses who give back of themselves to the worldwide Net community, offering their talents, their skills, their web sites, as resource points for other people who are interested in bettering themselves and their own sites ... These special people are a great asset to the World Community because they offer their advice and expertise to all who seek it, and everyday, they are making the Internet a better place to be!...". More info about this award is available at our "Honors Granted" section.
2004-10-20, listed at W3 Compliant Sites
Carlos Simoes is now a "W3 Compliant Sites Member". W3 Compliant Sites is a collection of web sites that were created by designers that conform with the W3C standards. This forum provides the opportunity for them to display their work and ideas in a community that shares common interests.
2004-10-13, listed at net-guide.co.uk
The CPSnet Web Awards are now listed at net-guide.co.uk with an accessibility rating of "excellent". This directory aims to promote accessible sites and gives an accessibility rating for the websites returned for any query entered. Similarly, the directory entries also carry an accessibility rating.
2004-06-07, rated 5 by WebsAwards
A special panel of external judges, convened to assess the programs owned by WebsAwards' Staff members, has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a WebsAwards level 5 program.
2004-05-04, rated 3 by Awardia
The Awardia Index has rated the CPSnet Web Awards as a level 3 (in 4 possible, where the fourth level is designated "Corona").
2004-04-01, rated 4 by EAI:
The Euro Award Index reinstated this award program at "Level 4" (in 5 possible).
2004-03-23, joined WSG:
We have joined the Web Standards Group (WSG). The Web Standards Group is for web developers/designers who are interested in web standards, CSS and (X)HTML and related topics.
2004-03-15, web site redesigned:
The CPSnet Web Awards have now a brand new website, fully compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict, "made with CSS" and WCAG-WAI Level AAA. Thank you to Webmates, of which we are proud members, for all the help and for the inspiration!
2004-01-15, announced the Best Site of Year 2003:
Announced back in 15/January 2004: "Explore Mars Now". In this outstanding website, visitors can walk through a Mars habitat simulation learning about science and technology as they explore. There are over 100 photo-realistic 3-D images of a near term Mars Habitat concept that are "brought to life" in Macromedia Flash.
  • RSS 2.0 Feed: Latest Winners

CSS is not supported or is currently disabled. The page is still completely usable.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

If you wish to print this page for offline reading, you can load this page in a printer-friendly format. After printing, just hit refresh or reload the page in your browser and the standard stylesheet will be reloaded.

  1. What is the purpose of this award program?
  2. What are your qualifications to judge and evaluate websites?
  3. What kind of sites do you seek to reward?
  4. I am not the owner or webmaster of the website, may I submit it to your award program?
  5. I am not older than 16, may I submit my website to your award program?
  6. Will my personal information be disclosed to anyone else or used for other purposes?
  7. May I submit more than one website?
  8. May I submit the same site to both awards, the HITSA and the Aracnofilia Design Award?
  9. How long will it take to get a result for my application?
  10. What are the requirements to be awarded one of your awards?
  11. Do you require that a site to be awarded must be standards-compliant?
  12. Do you require that a site to be awarded must have its content rated (for instance with ICRA)?
  13. Do you require that a site to be awarded must be WAI WCAG compliant?
  14. Will I be contacted in case my application is not successful ?
  15. How many times may a given website apply to any of your awards?
  16. Is there any kind of "password" or "secret word" in your criteria?
  17. May I use any of the CPSnet Web Awards graphics?
  18. May I link to the CSPnet Web Awards?
  19. May I use any material from the CPSnet Web Awards website?
  20. May I change the Award badge to fit the design of my website?
  21. Am I required to link back to your website, if my site gets awarded one of your awards?
  22. Is there any chance of my award being revoked?
  23. How can you be contacted?
1. What is the purpose of this award program?
Technically, our awards have the sole purpose of rewarding outstanding, flawless and sound web design as well as excellence in content, in its educational, cultural, scientific and recreational intention. Shortly, the purpose of this award program is to reward the work of those webmasters (and site owners and authors) who strive to build a better Internet, those persons that, by giving their best, most of the time for nothing in return except the personal satisfaction of an excellent work done, will allow us to, among so many other things, continue using the web for our personal development, our children's and our own education and to attain a better quality of life as well as a new level of knowledge and consciousness.
back to index
2. What are your qualifications to judge and evaluate websites?
You can read more about the qualifications of the owner of this award program at the "Webmaster" page and also read about our staff's qualifications at "Our Team" and related pages. This award program was established back in 2001, as you can read in our "About Us" page and since then it as attained some of the top recognitions and ratings in the web awards community, as you can see in our "Affiliations" page.
back to index
3. What kind of sites do you seek to reward?
Our award programs intend to reward web sites that excel in two main and fundamental aspects of a web presence: Content and Design. The "High In The Sky Award" rewards excellence in content, and the "Aracnofilia Web Design Award" seeks to reward outstanding and flawless web design. Regarding the HITSA, we welcome sites with informational, educational, scientific and/or cultural content of great quality, presented in an original way, asking for the visitors' participation and providing these visitors access to an extensive and resourceful virtual library. Concerning the Aracnofilia Design Award, the site should be considered an example of excellent and innovative web design,presenting an excellent overall balance of design, layout, well-optimized graphics, download time, friendly and functional navigation, browsers and platforms compatibility and overall professional appearance, originality and maintenance.
back to index
4. I am not the owner or webmaster of the website, may I submit it to your award program?
No. We only accept applications from either the owner, the legal representative or the webmaster if authorized to do so, of a given website. Corporate websites will be contacted to verify the validity of the application.
back to index
5. I am not older than 16, may I submit my website to your award program?
No. The minimum age requirement from this program is 16 (sixteen) years old. Please read our Children Online Privacy and Safety policy for further details.
back to index
6. Will my personal information be disclosed to anyone else or used for other purposes?
No. In our Privacy Policy, we state that we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the evaluation process without also providing you an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses. Furthermore, we do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that evaluation, for instance, assigning an evaluator to the evaluation request. Evaluators are considered as staff members of this Award program and therefore, obligated to respect our Privacy Policy.
back to index
7. May I submit more than one website?
No. According to our Rules and Procedures, bulk submissions are not accepted. A webmaster can submit one site each time to this award program. Please retain that the 90 days delay rule applies for another submission from the same webmaster, even if concerning another site. In addition, no more than three (3) websites from the same author, owner or webmaster can be awarded any of our awards.
back to index
8. May I submit the same site to both awards, the HITSA and the Aracnofilia Design award?
No. The applicant should select the award program to which the site is being submitted. This should be stated in the appropriate field in our Application form. A given website may only be submitted to one of the awards.
back to index
9. How long will it take to get a result for my application?
The review time is adjusted regularly and it depends on several factors like the number of pending evaluations, the amount of new applications, staff issues and personal circumstances, etc. The current review time is stated in several pages of our website, namely the Application form page.
back to index
10. What are the requirements to be awarded one of your awards?
Our award programs seek to reward two main aspects of your website: Its content and its design. So your website will be evaluated against a Content criteria (and scored as delineated in the "Content Scoring") and against a Design criteria (with the corresponding "Design Scoring"). A minimum value should be attained at both evaluations. Be aware that some materials and items, if present in your website, may cause your site to be disqualified (read more at our "Disqualification factors" page). You can check your site's chances by using the "Content self-test" and the "Design self-test" in order to ascertain if it may be able to successfully pass our evaluation.
back to index
11. Do you require that a site to be awarded must be standards-compliant (i.e. validated by W3C or equivalent validator)?
No. For the time being, that is not a requirement of our program, although, as stated in our Criteria, such compliance will provide some precious points in the scoring procedure. It is expected that in the future such compliance may be incorporated to our criteria, thus becoming a mandatory requirement.
back to index
12. Do you require that a site to be awarded must have its content rated (for instance with ICRA)?
No, except in the cases listed in our Children Online Privacy and Safety policy. For the time being, that is not a requirement of our program, although, as stated in our Criteria, such rating will provide some precious points in the scoring procedure. It is reasonable to expect that in the future such item may be incorporated to our criteria, thus becoming a mandatory requirement.
back to index
13. Do you require that a site to be awarded must be WAI WCAG compliant?
No. For the time being, that is not a requirement of our program, although, as stated in our Criteria, such compliance will provide some precious points in the scoring procedure. It is expected that in the future such compliance may be incorporated to our criteria, thus becoming a mandatory requirement.
back to index
14. Will I be contacted in case my site is not awarded one of your awards?
Probably not. We will not disclose the score sheet of any website evaluated by our award programs. We will eventually point any obvious and serious flaw we found on a website only after the evaluation has been concluded, in the light of positive criticism. You can check the result of your application by visiting our Application Status page. If you do not hear from us after 60 days, you can safely assume that your site was not awarded this time.
back to index
15. How many times may a given website apply to any of your awards?
The webmaster of a site that has not been considered eligible in the preliminary visit or did not attained the necessary classification to be awarded with one of our awards, will be able to submit it again for evaluation for no more than three (3) times in a one (1) year period, as long as the site has been effectively remodeled and ameliorated and no less than 90 days have passed since the last evaluation.
back to index
16. Is there any kind of "password" or "secret word" in your criteria that, if used in my application, would allow my application to be considered valid or given some kind of advantage?
No. There is no such requirement at our program. You are free to proceed to the application form without reading our criteria. But be aware that applications showing some evidence that our rules, procedures and criteria were not properly considered, will be immediately disregarded, without further notice.
back to index
17. May I use any of the CPSnet Web Awards graphics even if I am not a winner or not even an applicant?
You may use the official "link-exchange" graphics available at "Our Awards" page; The personalized badges (including the Sample badges) present in the same page can not be used outside of this website or he winning sites. We will prosecute any unauthorized use or plagiarism of the "Award Badges" available in this site to the fullest extent of the law.
back to index
18. May I link to the CSPnet Web Awards, even if I am not a winner?
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and which does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it. In particular, you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists. Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor should you establish a link to any part of our site other than the home/holding page. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. Please read our "Terms of Use" for more information.
back to index
19. May I use any material from the CPSnet Web Awards website?
Unless otherwise noted, all website design, text, graphics, stylesheets and the selection and arrangement thereof is ©Copyright 2000- 2005 by Carlos Paula Simões, all rights reserved. Permission is granted to electronically copy and to print in hard copy portions of this site for personal or non-profit educational use as an informational resource. Any other use of materials on this website, including reproduction for purposes other than those noted above, modification, distribution, republication, transmission, re-transmission, modification or public showing without the prior written permission of Carlos Paula Simões, is strictly prohibited. This statement does not include the Code of Ethics Statement that it is considered public domain. This document was originally written by Rhonda Serong in an effort to promote ethical practices and awareness among award givers. If you have an award site and would like a Statement of Ethics for your program, please go to CEM/CEMA. There is a statement on the site that is easy to personalize just for your site.
back to index
20. May I change the Award badge to fit the design of my website?
No. We do not authorize to change the appearance of the Seal (including the -- but not limited to -- file size, image dimensions, color depth, gamma, balance and curves, the image format, compression and/or optimization), remove the watermark in it (if present) by means of re-editing the image or change the original filename. Any of the previous situations, if detected, will lead to immediate revocation of the award. If you need a special version of the award badge, please contact us so that we can appreciate your request and eventually provide you an alternate version of the award badge.
back to index
21. Am I required to link back to your website, if my site gets awarded one of your awards?
No. The only requirement is to display the Award badge or one of our official banners and buttons, as available at "Our Awards" page. You are not required to link back to the CPSnet Web Awards.
back to index
22. Is there any chance of my award being revoked?
Yes. Awarded sites may be regularly checked for compliance with our rules and criteria. If a site is found to be modified since the evaluation and that the modification configures some severe depreciation or even disqualification of the site, it will be removed from the list of awarded sites, the webmaster or site's owner will be informed of this decision and will have to remove our award seal as soon as possible, unless the disqualifying item is removed instead. Also be aware that we do some periodic checks on the link you have provided and whenever one site is found not available, it may be removed from our lists. Please let us know of any changes to your site's URL.
back to index
23. May I contact you?
Yes, please! If you do have any question not answered in this page or at any other page of our website or if some doubt still remains, please use our "Contact Us" page. Allows us to thank you in advance for any feedback, suggestion or question you may send us that could help us make this website more useful!