Webbieworld

  

What link do I use to have people vote for me?

You should use the url:

http://www.webbieworld.com/vote.asp?recordno=(YourRecordNo)

Replace the "(YourRecordNo)" above with your site's number. If you don't know your site's record number, find your site is on Webbieworld and mouse over the link. You will see the record number there.

What is an active directory?

An Active Directory is a user maintain open system that allows unprecedented control over site listings. By allowing site owners to control how their site is displayed, Webbieworld becomes the most proactive directory site on the Internet.

But it also means that the content is unfiltered and can reflect the community that uses the system, so explore at your own risk!

Why do you rate sites?

I've been reviewing websites for a long time and just seeing so many sites gives you a perspective on what is good and bad. I think that people can benefit from getting a bit of information back about their sites.

My site is better than you rated it!

Maybe it is, but that's just my opinion. And I'm rating based on my criteria of a good site which may differ from yours. Also, your site is probably getting more exposure from being rated than it would have before I started rating.. so you actually are better off.

Will you rate my site again?

I may rate your site again if you've gone through a redesign.. but I'm not promising anything.

Why did my site disappear?

If you have a free Webbieworld site, you must receive at least 1 vote a month to stay active. This helps us weed out sites that become inactive.

Why did you change how things work?

It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain Webbieworld. Without some voluntary financial support, the work load is way too much. This also allows people who want to generate more traffic for their site to take it to another level.

Can I still have a site on Webbieworld for free?

Sure.. and we hope you still use the vote banners to make sure you get at least one vote a month. We don't think that is too much to ask to participate and benefit from the traffic.

How does search work?

Basically, you enter in a partial search phrase and the database finds it. You can enter in one or two separate phrases. You don't have to put them in "quotation marks", you don't have to use & symbols or any of that other user unfriendly stuff that the major search engines make you do.

Why do you do it differently than the other search engines?

Short answer: we think our way is better for how people really want to find things.

We don't want you to have to think of all the programming stuff. If you want to find all of the sites that are about Real Estate, you can enter in "real es" if you want and get them.

Our search will look for the string "real es" and find the string "real estate" because the search string is a subset of the entire string. You can enter in the entire "real estate" if you want, but being able to search subsets sometimes let you find more results.

We are looking for a phrase and if your phrase matches something in our database, we are going to show you that site. Doing it this way is much easier to use than all that SQL junk that you usually have to remember to do a search on a phrase.

What is a search phrase?

A search phrase is a piece of a phrase you want to look up. Don't worry about putting it in quotes, we do that for you. If you want to look up news, just enter "news" (without quotes) in the search box.

If you want racing news, you can either enter "racing news" in the first box or "racing" in the first box and "news" in the second box. If you use the term "racing news", you will get only sites that specifically say "racing news". In the second example, you will sites that have both words in their profile.

What is a partial phrase?

A partial phrase lets you enter in part of a word or phrase and still find records. For instance, you could be lazy and enter in "compu" and still find all the computer sites.

What are keywords?

When the sites are entered in the database (usually by their owners), they also enter in keywords for our engine to find. This lets them come up in more searches than using just their description.

What does "Results will contain both phrases" mean?

If you want to only find sites that have both of your search phrases in the searched fields, turn this option on. If you want to find sites that have either one or the other phrases, leave it off. (an X in the box means on)

If you use the "racing" and "news" example from above, this is how it would work:

If you leave it off, you will get sites that either have the phrase "racing" or the phrase "news".

If you turn it on, you will only get sites that have both phrases in them.

Standard WebbieWorld Questions

Is Webbieworld a Portal?

Absolutely not. Not in the sense that we want to be everything to everyone, the current definition of "Portal".

We think we are what a portal should actually be... a place to find out about web sites and the people that build them. A portal for the people, maybe.

Ok then, what is Webbieworld?

It is a web site devoted to the internet. It is a site that helps people find interesting sites without having to go through all the garbage that the portal sites throw at you.

All of the search engines want to be your everything. We just want to tell you about web sites and web people.

It is also a place where people can promote their site and try to increase their traffic. A site submitted to WebbieWorld will be listed immediately.

How do you get the Top 40 most visited sites?

WebbieWorld is a smart engine. It knows where people are going, but has checks in place to make sure people can't artificially inflate the traffic numbers.

We use the WebbieWorld traffic numbers to determine the order of the most visited sites. And to make it fair to new sites, we continually depreciate the old traffic stats. If a site is hot in the current week, it will make it towards the top because the older stats aren't weighted as high as the newer stats. This gives every site the chance to bubble up to the top.

WebbieWorld also uses the traffic data to order the sites on the category pages. The more visits a site gets, the higher profile it becomes.

What is a People's Pick?

Every place you see a site, you will also see a "vote" link. If you want to place your vote for a site, all you have to do is click on the link. WebbieWorld handles the rest.

You get to vote for one site a day. If you change your mind during the day, you can click on another site's vote link. We take your last vote of the day.

We total up the votes for the week and build the People's Pick list. The site on top at the end of the week is the People's Pick Site of the Week. We start over for the next week with everyone at 0 votes.

How does a site get to be a Webbie HotPick?

A site becomes a Webbie HotPick when it catches our eye as an outstanding site. Outstanding, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but we try to give every site a fair shot.

Why won't you choose my site as a Webbieworld HotPick?

Competition is stiff, and it takes a really great site to impress us. It is nothing personal, we promise. We pick sites that impress us and meet our special standards of quality... and that standard is very high.

Didn't you used to be the Webbie Awards?

Yes we did, until a large corporation and a certain person decided to steal our name and our concept. But that is a long story...

Did that make you mad?

We just decided to come up with a better concept for today's web and morph the old concept into Webbieworld, a pure site for people interested in the web. Money can buy you name recognition, but it can't buy you credibility.

How long does it take to get my site listed after I submit it?

Now your site is listed as soon as you submit it. And it is up to you to keep it up-to-date.

The category or subcategory I want isn't listed.

Make sure you put it in the suggested category box on the submission form. Our categories don't change much, but they do change if the demand is high. Our subcategories are ever-growing and ever-changing. We want to be sure to move your site to it's proper place once we create it, so let us know where you would like to be by filling out the suggested category on the submission form.

And we know what subcategories are needed by the feedback we get. If there is enough of a demand, we will definitely add a subcategory. The entire site is built on its flexibility to grow with the flow.

Who are you, anyway?

Mark Connell designed the database, scripted the interaction, and wrote the HTML. Tom Carter did the graphic work doing his usual wonderful job.

How does the People's Pick selections work?

It's easy! Each person who visits our site gets to vote for one site per day. All he has to do is find the site he wants to vote for, and click "vote". If a person votes for more than one site during a day, we take his last choice.

All through the week, we keep track of the top sites by visitor's votes. At the end of the week (and we decided that the end was Sunday) we take the top nominated site and make it the "Webbieworld Site of the Week". Top sites will be listed during the next week, but the "WebbieWorld Site of the Week" honoree will be listed forever.

And, of course, we also list the top sites of the current week.

What do you consider cheating?

Cheating is attempting to artifically increase your site's status in any part of Webbieworld. Attempting to increase your site's status by telling your friends and visitors to vote for your site is perfectly acceptable.

And just to be clear.... we have software checks in place to automatically detect cheating type behaviors, so you would be better off finding an acceptable way of increasing your votes.

Why do you have a People's Pick and a Webbie HotPick?

We want our visitors to be able to find cool sites. Giving different ways to rank sites gives them several ways to bubble up to the top, and be noticed. We watch the People's Picks and the Top 40 Most Visited Sites in order to find new gems as well.

Webbieworld is a place for everyone. We may not pick your site as a Webbie HotPick, but that doesn't mean your site shouldn't get noticed. Other ways of becoming noticed is what makes Webbieworld special.

Do you need help?

Uh... yes. Well, actually we tried to build the site and the accompanying applications to help us out. We also hope people from the internet community will be able to help us out when we start building Supersites.

Helping out includes writing articles, choosing sites, and assisting with interviews. We are working out some of the details, but if you have an idea, we love listen.

What is a Supersite?

When there is enough content and interest in a category or subcategory, we will spin it off into a Supersite that concentrates on a more focused area of the internet. When we do that, we would love to have people who could help us interview experts in the field, write articles, and check out the newest sites.

We are still building the tools to let us do that easily, but we're almost there.

Can I send people to vote for my site?

Sure you can... and you can use our "Vote for Us" banner to help out. Of course, if we catch you trying to cheat the system, we will remove your site from our database, banished forever.

You can also use:

  

What is the meaning of life?

I don't know, ask Markbot