Another Great List: Directory of Personalized Gifts Sites on the Web Sites

5 Star Sites

4 Star Sites

3 Star Sites

2 Star Sites

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Visitor Number

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can be listed in the Directory?

What is a Personalized Gift?
How do I properly display my Membership Logo?

How do I submit my site?
What happens after I submit my URL?
- How long does it take to get listed?
Can I list more than one site?
How we assign stars
- What is a professionally designed page?
- What is a fast loading page?
- What is a secure online order form?
- Evidence of site being regularly maintained?
How to forfeit a Star
- What is spamming?
- Using an alphabetical name trick
- Site name doesn't match "make checks payable to" name
- We can't easily find your company information
Other Notes
- Will my rating ever change?
- Can my listing be removed?
- Can my site be banned?
Legal Stuff

Answers

Who can be listed in the Directory?
Only sites that specialize in Personalized Gifts and properly display their Membership Logo can be listed.
- What do you mean by Specialize?
  At least 75% of your products or services must be personalized. If you are unsure, please us with your query.
- What is a Personalized Gift?
  Originally, we defined a personalized gift as having to do with someone's name. For example, a golf ball that said "John Rogers" instead of Titelist.
  However, our Members have pointed out other personalized gifts that we hadn't considered. Therefore, we have expanded our definition to include custom made gift baskets, electronic greeting cards, and "Creative Memories" style photo albums.
  Our Gift Card rule of thumb: If you cleverly arrange some items in a gift basket and add a custom gift card, it IS a personalized gift. If you pull a stock item off a shelf and add a custom gift card, it is NOT a personalized gift.
  Even though Advertising Specialties are personalized, we do not list sites with minimum order requirements and/or set-up fees.
  Sites that offer only one product - with several variations - will be added solely at the discretion of the Ring.
  If you are unsure, please us with your query.
- How do I properly display my Membership Logo?
  You can center or align your Membership Logo. You can put it in a table. You can place it at the top or bottom of your page. You can NOT change the code in any way, and it can not be placed on a page that refreshes or pulls to another page.
  
  The logo must be displayed on the page your listing points to. The logo must NOT be placed on a "Splash Page" or separate "Index Page" created just for The Ring. For example, if your normal home page is index.htm, you can't create a mirror index2.htm just for your logo. It must be placed on a regular functional site page that other pages point back to. Remember, the Membership Logo opens in a NEW browser window, so your visitor never leaves your site.
  
  Important!
  Our robot is nothing more than a Search Engine. Instead of searching for one or two keywords, it searches for the EXACT phrase of a Membership Logo code. If you change any part of the code - even simply adding a period or changing a font - the robot will NOT find the code and your site will not be listed. DO NOT ALTER THE CODE IN ANY WAY!
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How do I submit my site?
Go to our Add URL page and follow the 4 easy steps.
- Step 1 - Information About the Submitter
  Simply enter your name and email address. Since we use your email address as your identification, make sure it is correct.
- Step 2 - Information About the Site
  - Enter the URL address of your site. Remember, your Membership Logo must be on the page your URL address points to. If you put your logo on a "Favorite Links" page, the submitted URL address must point to the Links page and not your main Index page.
  - Enter the Title of the site. Your title can be no more than 50 characters and must include your company name.
  - Enter your company name. This is the name that customers make their checks payable to.
  - Enter your site description. Your description can be up to two lines, (3 lines for 5 Star sites), no more than 175 characters. Do not use ALL CAPS. Hint: The better the message here, the better the chances of a viewer clicking on your link. Put some thought into your description.
- Step 3 - Cut & Paste Your Membership Banner
  There are several Membership Logo choices to best fit the style of your site. You can view the choices here. Simply cut & paste your preferred choice's code onto your page. If you do not have a forms capable browser, simply email us your request, and we'll send you the appropriate code.
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What happens after I submit my URL?
We visit your site at least three times using three types of browsers - Netscape, MSIE, and AOL - and run the tests described later in the FAQs. We send an email confirmation if your site has been accepted. If your site was rejected, we tell you why and suggest certain changes to make.
- How long does it take to get listed?
  Since we run a battery of tests, we generally spend about 40 minutes at each site. We average 20-30 submissions a day, so it takes about 3 days to get listed. We will not list your site until we verify your Membership Logo has been properly displayed. We currently are not accepting sites that we rate below a 2 Star Rating.
Can I list more than one site?
You can submit as many sites as you like, as long as they are on separate servers. Since we use your email address as your ID number, you must also use a separate email address.
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How we assign stars
You can earn up to a 5 Star Rating. You earn a star for each of the following: By being listed and properly displaying your Membership Logo, by having a professionally designed site, by having fast loading pages, by having a secure online order form, and by showing evidence the site is maintained on a regular basis.
- What is a professionally designed site?
  A professionally designed site is just that - a site designed by a professional. If you didn't pay a professional company $100,000 - or if you do not have an in-house division of at least 10 web people - then it's not a professionally designed site.
  A professionally designed site does NOT include pop up windows with off-site advertisements, embedded music that can not be turned off by the visitor, etc.
  A professionally designed site has its own domain name. It is not hosted by a free hosting service such as Geocities, and does not contain a tilde (~).
- What is a fast loading page?
  Ideally, pages should load in no more than 6 seconds, or your visitor may decide to go elsewhere. (Yahoo loads in 3 seconds). Our cutoff point is 10 seconds on a 28.8 modem.
- What is a secure online order form?
  Secure online ordering shows your customers that your site is planning on staying around awhile, and that you care enough about both your site and your customers to make ordering easy and secure. While PayPal is an excellent ADDITIONAL feature, if you don't have your own merchant account, then you should answer NO to this question.
- Evidence of site being regularly maintained?
  No one wants to view stale information. If you're serious about your site, you will maintain it on a regular basis - our cutoff is at least once a month.
  We also need to SEE that the site is being maintained by either a Javascript last updated script, or by manually typing "Page last updated on xx." Without seeing evidence on the page, we don't know when the page was last updated. Please note, putting "This page is updated on a regular basis" on a page does NOT tell us - or your visitors - when it was last updated.
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How to forfeit a Star
You can forfeit a star by spamming, using a name trick to get listed higher, if the name a customer writes a check for doesn't match the name of the site, or if we can't find your company information in 3 clicks or less.
- What is spamming?
  Spamming is a way to cheat search engines into giving your site a higher ranking than it deserves. There are many spamming tricks, but a simple explanation is if your HTML code has anything a visitor can't actually see on the page, then you are using spam techniques.
- Using an alphabetical name trick
  Since our directory is alphabetical, you will forfeit a star if you change your site title to rank higher. In fact, we probably won't list your site. For example, if your company's name is Billy's Gift Shoppe and you try to call it AAAA Gifts, or 1Billy's Gifts, that would constitute a name trick.
- Site name doesn't match "make checks payable to" name
  You will forfeit a star if your site name doesn't match the name customers have to make their checks payable to. For example, if your site is titled "World's Greatest Personalized Gifts", and somewhere in small print on the order form it says "Make checks payable to Jason Klien", you will lose a star. You can avoid this by calling your site "World's Greatest Personalized Gifts by Jason Stein". A good rule of thumb is to use the name that's on your business stationery or checkbook. Also, if we can't find information on who to make a check payable to, you will forfeit a star.
- We can't easily find your company information
  Our policy is no more than three clicks to find your company information. This includes a minimum of company name, address, phone and email. This probably sounds obvious to most people, but some sites overlook the obvious. We recently reviewed a site that offered a personalized product for $85. We searched every page and were unable to find the company name, address, phone, or even an email address! Would YOU send this company $85?
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Other Notes
Here is some other important information you need to know.
- Will my rating ever change?
  Our robot goes out twice a month and checks for any changes. If your site's rating changes, you will be notified by email.
  
  If you have made changes to your site, you may email us a request to reevaluate your site. Please, no more than one request per month.
- Can my listing be removed?
  If our robot doesn't find an UNALTERED Membership Code on any visit, your listing will be removed immediately. This generally happens if you redesign your page and inadvertently alter the code, or if you move your Logo from your original page to another page.
  
  If your rating ever falls below 2 Stars, your listing will be removed.
  
  If your site gets so little traffic that it is sending little or no traffic to our other Members, then your listing will be removed as a courtesy to all our Members. This decision is solely at the discretion of the Ring.
- Can my site be banned?
  If your site engages in unethical business practices, or the Ring gets a large number of complaints about your site, we will not list your site.
  
  If we have to send a second warning email about not complying with the Ring's policies, you will not be allowed to be a member. For example, if you move your Logo to a Links page or a Webring page and our robot doesn't find it at the page you told us it should be, we send you a warning email. You would need to either move your Logo back or change your Ring listing. If it happens a second time, we permanently remove your listing.
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The Fine Print
- The Ring of Personalized Gifts (the Ring) reserves to the right to edit, refuse or delete any submission at its own discretion.
- The Ring of Personalized Gifts is not responsible for the content on any of the listed URLs.
- The Ring of Personalized Gifts may change/modify/delete these rules at any time. It is your responsibility to keep abreast of any changes.
- Only current members of the Ring of Personalized Gifts may display our banner.
- Either party may terminate this agreement by notifying the other party by email. The Ring will promptly remove the listing, and the site owner will promptly remove the Ring logo.
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