The Darwin Web Award
The WDI has suffered much bad press on account of the discrediting behaviour that abounds among the disreputable. I am grateful to one of my peers in the industry for bringing yet another item to my attention, that being; the issue of awards and related practices. One of the most astounding cases, involves a company that claim to be ‘award winning web designers’ in their title tag, yet a thorough examination of their website reveals no visible mention of said award. All appearances suggest that they are making use of the statement merely to attract visitors, though I am at a loss to understand why they would do this. Further investigation reveals that there is a competitor site who also use that term in their title tag, though justifiably, as they actually have awards which are clearly displayed on their homepage.
So, ethics aside, why would a web designer claim to the world at large that they have an award, when they actually don’t? As the statement is only in the title tag, and not on their actual site (otherwise they would have to produce said award) it seems likely that they believe this to be helping their SEO efforts. This possibility seems even more likely when we consider that the competitor site is in first place on Google for that region. However, emulating a competitor’s title tag will have no SEO benefits whatever, but will certainly attract attention from peers in the region (and it has)! So, what’s going on? Another claim from the same company is that they have been voted ‘one of the best in businesses in their region’, which statement proudly adorns their email footer in the form of a link. Upon clicking the link, the recipient is ushered into a local directory which is furbished with client testimonials. However, there is no mention of anyone voting the company as ‘one of the best in businesses in their region’, unless you consider that a testimonial constitutes a vote. The inevitable conclusion of all this, is that the award in question is actually referring to the vote, which in turn refers to the client testimonial. This type of fantastical evolution might appeal to someone like Charles Darwin, but there’s more than one missing link in this particular award evolution theory.
I have come up with the DWDA (Darwin Web Design Award), which I hereby do not bestow on the company mentioned above (which shall remain nameless) for outstanding achievement in pursuit of unscrupulous self-promotion, though they thoroughly deserve it.
