This is the award I grant  for excellence of Content .	I grant this for excellence in Design.	This is an award for new sites and new webMasters that show great promise.

The point of Web Awards,
(Or, Why should I apply for your stupid little button anyway?)

You've seen 'em all over the place, maybe applied, perhaps even received and posted an award or two with pride upon your page.
And at some point, you might have realized that the award was really no more meaningful than someone you don't even know dropping you a note to say, "Hey, neat place, you've got here!"
Many, (I daresay, perhaps most,) web-awards are just nifty little buttons someone designed, and give out to say just that.  Often, the criteriea, like mine, are determined by a single individual, and sites submitted are judged by that same single person.  There's usually no council or board that get together and vote on whether or not your site's worthy of  esteem, so what's the point?

Links.
Support. 

If I look over your site, and I think it's great, then the odds are high that some of the people who like my site will like yours, too.
And, it's an equal probability that some of the folks who like your site will like mine, too.
So it's a pretty mutually beneficial thing... Some folks might come to my site from an award link on some other page, (I get a hit,) then they apply for my award, and in the process, follow the links to your site, (you get a hit,) and you check up on who's all getting this silly award anyway, and follow the link to that other person's site, and so on and so on....

So even though some of these awards are a little arbitrary, everyone benefits.

Then of course, there's a certain pride in having a few awards on your page, and  it makes you look good, too!