What Do We Look For in a Featured Page, Anyway?

The features department gets more than 1,500 messages each week, and we try to go through them as efficiently as we can. The Community Leaders are the first filter: When you submit your site to them, they review it carefully. If they feel it meets the standards for the Featured Page Program, they send it on to us, the GeoCities editors, so we can make the final decision.

We look at each site the Leaders send us and put it in one of two folders: "no" or "recommend".

There are a few things that will instantly send your site to the "no" folder, no matter how good it is. Before you apply to the Featured Page Program, make sure:

• There are no broken images on your page
• All links work (and we do mean all)
• Your background isn't obscuring your text or making your page hard to read
• If you have a "What's New" page or section, you've updated it within the last week
• Your page isn't just a list of links to other places
• Your page meets content guidelines. If you've forgotten what they are, click here and review them now.
• You're in the right neighborhood. Check the Neighborhood Directory to see if the content of your page matches the neighborhood you're in.

We send people in the "no" folder get a letter telling them they have not been featured. We wish we could send everyone a personal letter detailing precisely why the site was denied, but we just don't have the people-power. If you want to know why we didn't choose your page, try asking one of your Community Leaders -- they have a lot of experience with GeoCities pages and may have some insight.

We send people in the "recommend" folder a letter telling them they have passed this review. Another GeoCities editor looks at all these sites and makes the final decision whether to feature them.

In the final step, we look at the quality and originality of content and the page's overall look. Content is most important - if a page is not that sophisticated graphically but has excellent content, we will still feature it. However, we prefer that sites have a consistent graphical design throughout and a good layout. Don't overload your page with too many frames, animated GIFs or pictures: More does not neccessarily mean better when it comes to web pages.

To nominate your site, send a message to one of the Community Leaders in your neighborhood with Featured Page in the subject line. You'll find a list of your leaders by going to the main page of your neighborhood (for example, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/) and clicking on the "Community Leaders" link on the left.

Please be patient as we work our way through the thousands of applications in our pile. If you've been denied before, try writing to someone whose page you admire and ask for advice. You'd be amazed how friendly your neighbors can be!