IMPORTANT RULES

Easy Navigation

Your site should let the visitor easily navigate through without having to hit the back button more than once.  A solid, attractive and intuitive navigation system is the first aspect of building a successful site.

Originality and Creativity
The simple rule in web ethics is no stealing of graphics or plagiarism of words from other site(s).

Well Established
Your site should be well known among the Internet community. Unless it's a personal page, your site should be listed in the top 10 at any major search engine. 300 is recommended, and a monthly submission service is also a good idea. This is an integral part of maintaining a successful web site.

Harmony of Colors and Images
The typography and graphic colors used on your site should blend harmoniously together, and images used should fit into the overall theme or purpose.

Good Content
This means that you have more than 10 pages of useful content. This is a must. Generally, visitors will be more prone to linger if it has helpful material or it sparks their interest. If your visitors become uninterested they will leave your site.

Grammatical & Spelling Errors

Proof-reading is an essential component to maintaining a good web site.  It takes only a couple of seconds (or minutes) to quickly read through your content before publishing it live on the web.  If a misspelled word changes the whole meaning of a sentence, it reflects poorly on the webmaster.

Reasonable Loading Time

Graphics and pictures may take awhile to load, and I will take this into consideration. However, if it takes too long to load because of unnecessary stuff like large mailbox graphics (when a simple text link will do just fine) you will lose points.

Screen Resolution Compatibility
The site should be reasonably attractive and functional in all screen resolutions, not just the one that YOU use.  Monitor sizes, as well as, resolution settings greatly vary what your viewers see.

         BIG NO-NO's

No Distracting Backgrounds

Have you ever been to a site where you couldn't read the words because the background was too dark or over-empowering?  This is what you want to avoid if you choose to have a background image, or color other than white or black.

No Saturation of Advertisements
One or two banners is fine, but having more than two on every page becomes distracting to the visitor. Plus it shows that the number one purpose for your site is to make money (which is not very appealing to your visitors).

No Background Music
If you must: Sound or music should be able to be turned off.

Don't Over-Do the "Extras"
Animations, scrolling text boxes, moving banners, flashing lights, blinking signs, music, etc. Too much is not a good thing. It will slow your load time down considerably and create confusion. People generally have a goal they are trying to reach, or need to know what the main point of the site is right away, not be entertained by gimmicks. On that note....

Usage of the 'Alt' and Meta Tags
In case an image is broken or a graphic takes too long to load, your visitor shouldn't have to second guess where the graphic links to or what the picture is. Ideally, you should also specify the width and height for all graphics and pictures.

Reasonable Page Lengths

Pages that are lengthy should be divided up into several pages, or have hyperlinks that can lead you back to the top of the page. Pages that are excessive in length often represent poor information architecture or laziness.

No Excessive Use of Java

Please keep the use of Java (not to be confused with JavaScript) in moderation because they just increase the loading time. A good site usually uses Flash instead of Java when an animation or eye candy is needed.