The Black Weblog Awards » rules

Why Didn’t My Blog Win An Award?

Maurice — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:00:58 +0000

This is probably the #1 question we receive, and sometimes, it can be hard to answer. But when it comes down to it, there’s a few reasons why your blog may not have won a Black Weblog Award.

YOU DIDN’T CAMPAIGN ENOUGH

Even though we now have a panel of judges which also choose winners for the awards, half of this event is still a popularity contest. It’s just like you’re campaigning to win an election — you have to get out there and shake some hands and kiss some babies. Or, in this digital age, you need to campaign on social networks, create compelling e-mail campaigns, and get some momentum behind your nomination. Now that we have expanded the period before we choose the finalists to nearly two months, there’s no excuse to not get out there and campaign like you want to win.

YOU DON’T QUALIFY, OR YOU BROKE THE RULES

We have had to disqualify people in the past because they either broke the rules by cheating, or were ineligible because of…well, because they didn’t follow the rules. Are you well-versed with this year’s rules? Better make sure to bone up on them before nominations begin.

YOUR SITE’S NOT ORIGINAL ENOUGH

What makes your site stand out? Here’s a hint: it’s not necessarily because you’re writing content. If you can name five other sites on any given day which are discussing the same items that you are, then congratulations — your site is not that original. And because the public and the judges are a blog savvy crew, your site has to really stand out to garner their attention.

YOUR BLOG IS MORE ADS THAN CONTENT

We understand that bloggers need to make money. However, if your website is full of ads with minimal content, not only will our judges pass it over, but your readers may as well. And if your readers are passing it over, then you may not get those coveted nominations you need to become a finalist.

YOUR SITE IS A MESS

Here’s a little secret: well-designed blogs with compelling content not only attract readers, but win awards. Sites can be a mess due to a number of factors. You may have sidebars full of widgets and banners, but only update your site once or twice a month. You have broken images or a busted layout. The color combination on your site — while cool to you — is garish and off-putting to others. Your content is rambling and incoherent. Get a critical second set of eyes to analyze your site and make sure you’re not working against yourself.

Make sure to catch our live Q&A on May 31 at 8pm Eastern time. Sign up to receive an e-mail update about it at http://www.blackweblogawards.com/live.

2010 BWA Nominations Begin June 1

Maurice — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:00:04 +0000

Nominations will officially begin on June 1 and will continue on through July 25. Links to submit your blog will be available on June 1 here on the website, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Make sure to check out the new categories for this year, read the rules, and spend some time checking out the past winners – your blog could be among this elite group!

UPDATE: This post will remain at the top of the page until nominations begin on June 1.

New Rules and Categories for 2009 BWAs

Maurice — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:30:28 +0000

We like to change things up a bit every year, and this year is no exception. We have a few new rules and new categories, so listen up!

Rules

Like we stated before, we lifted that “you can’t nominate your own blog” rule. Now, blog owners can easily nominate their own blog through our simple process. When you’ve completed it, you will receive a unique link for your blog that will allow other to vote for you for the finalist round!

Next up, we’ve changed the duration of the Awards just a bit. Nominations this year start on June 20 and end on July 25, which will give you plenty of time to get your nomination in AND have people vote for them. Finalist voting has also been lengthened, and now runs the entire month of August. Winners are announced on September 4.

There’s also a new rule out there for those repeat winners. Blogs that have won a particular category at least three times are no longer eligible to win for that particular category. This includes blogs that have won either the Judges’ and/or Popular vote for their category. We’ll go into more detail about this, since several categories have changed names over the years.

New Rules + Wufoo

Maurice — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:08:00 +0000

Make sure to check out the Rules page to see the changes in this year’s Awards. Last year, we were completely overwhelmed with letting people vote as many times as they wanted for their favorite blogs and relied on the user to self-moderate themselves.

Well…that kinda didn’t work. Malformed URLs meant searching and navigating and guessing what the site was. Some ballots came in with no URLs at all and just names like “Mike’s site”. Well…who’s Mike? Help us out here, ya know? And of course, there are the spammers with tons of empty and fake ballots.

This year, we’re changing all of that and making it more stringent. Now, you can only submit your nominations once during the nomination period and can only vote once when the finalists are chosen. This makes the contest fairer to everyone and not a popularity contest of sorts.

In addition to these new forms, we’re using an awesome new site called Wufoo for our forms. Last year, there wasn’t a whole lot of room for imposing any restrictions. Wufoo powers not only the nomination and finalist forms, but our contact form as well, so if you have any questions for us, feel free to use it.