Sites are ranked according to their effectiveness as link partners and the ranking has nothing to do with the quality of the site. The main criteria we use to rank a web site as a link partner are as follows.

1) How easily the links can be found - sites that hide their link partners links or bury links deep within huge link pages score badly in this area. Sites that do not have a structured link directory but expect surfers and spiders to wade through pages of links to reach a link page score badly.

2) Sites that have static link pages rather than dynamic pages with many variables will score better.

3) Sites where some link pages have been cached by search engines will score better.

4) Sites that require a certain pr before they will exchange links score badly in this area - The pr that is visible on the toolbar is not the actual pr of the site and can be up to 6 months out of date. Webmasters should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a link exchange without depending on an out of date pr that can easily be falsified.

5) Sites that cloak their link pages from the search engines will score very badly overall. Over a period of time it is easy to tell if a site is cloaked.

6) Sites that place all types of return links on the same page and do not have separate categories will not score well in this area.

7) Sites using robots.txt files to prevent search engine spiders indexing their link directories will score very badly overall.

8) Sites loading links through java will score very badly overall as will sites that redirect their partners links through a script.

9) Sites using forms rather than just 'send an email' will increase their score.

10) Sites that answer link requests made in their required format will increase their score. (They do not have to accept links just answer link requests made as they require)

11) Sites that impose link requirements not mentioned on their site at the time of requesting a link will score badly overall.

12) Sites that remove links without good reason will score badly overall.

13) Sites that generally act in an unfair manner will score badly overall.

The editors have a large influence over decisions on what makes an effective link partner and what should be penalised so the above may change and the points awarded for each part also change.