Do
you really review each web site?
What do the ratings at the end of each listing mean?
What do you mean by "Best Value?"
When I "tell a friend" do you capture the email addresses?
Do vendors pay for positioning in your listings?
What do the colors in the listings mean?
Why do you only show vendor name links, not their logos
or ads?
How
do you decide what sale ads to list in the category sale pages?
I
am a vendor. How can I get listed in the Best Value Guide?
Are
there any types of sites that you never list?
Why
do you say that you have no ads, yet there are ads on your "sales"
pages?
Why
do you list a relatively small number of sites in each category?
Why does the Best Value Guide have
only 22 shopping categories?
I
thought you said no popups! I got a popup right when I entered the
site!
I like what I see! Can I put a
link to the Best Value Guide on my own site?
I run a web site. Can we exchange
links?
What does "[IM]" mean when it appears after
a vendor name?
Do
you really review each web site?
Absolutely!
In fact, we review about 30 sites for every one that we actually
end up listing! Once we've found a site that we feel qualifies for
our guide, a more in-depth review takes place. This involves actually
using the site as a customer would -- looking for specific information,
even placing an order (up until confirming and paying, that is!)
By doing this, we can evaluate the user-friendliness and usability
of the site. (To see some of what we consider, read the next answer
as well.) Why do we bother, when most other guides simply list the
vendor's logo and/or advertising copy? Because we want the Best
Value Guide to actually provide some added value,
rather than simply provide a list of advertisements.
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What
do the ratings at the end of each listing mean?
The
rating numbers shown at the end of each vendor listing represent
a measure of how well the site rated in our evaluation review. The
rating has nothing at all to do with the quality of products provided
by the vendor, just the vendor's online web site. It is important
to note that these ratings are somewhat subjective, but are initially
based on a set of criteria as follows:
-
Support
(How easy is it to find a vendor phone number? Toll-free?)
-
Guarantee/Return
Policy (Clear? Fair? Satisfying? Easy?)
-
Aesthetics
(How clean or cluttered is the web page? Sizing?)
-
Annoyances
(Pop-ups? Flashy ads, distractions? Sounds?)
-
Navigation
(How easy is it to find your way around?)
-
Searching
(Capability, ease of use, presentation of results)
-
Price
(Discounts? Price Guarantee? Incentives? Clubs?)
-
Shipping
(Clearly defined? Upgrades? Free qualifications?)
-
Sales
(Specials/Sales present? Easy to find? Original prices shown?)
-
Uniqueness
(Are the products/services in some way unique?)
-
Shopping
Cart (How easy to use? Options? Suggestions? Quick?)
As
you can see, quite a bit goes into the initial rating! Obviously
not all the above points apply to every site. For example, a site
selling a single service probably doesn't need a search capability.
We take that into account when producing the rating, which is always
a number from 1-100. Any site that scores less than 65 is not listed.
We may also make slight adjustments to a rating score (upwards of
downwards) based on user feedback that we receive.
That
said, please note that we do not assign ratings to the downloadable
products in out Instant Marketplace section -- they will show a
zero [0] after the listing.
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What
do you mean by "Best Value?"
Glad
you asked! Many people seem to associate "best value"
with "best price". We do not. Sure, price is important,
but what good is a great price if you can't get service when you
need it? If you can't easily return something you bought but don't
like? If the vendor takes your money but keeps you waiting weeks
for delivery? If you are frustrated trying to negotiate a poorly-designed
web site?
We
want you, our clients, to know that if you choose to order from
any of our listed sites you will have a pleasant shopping experience
and be dealing with a reputable vendor who will provide stellar
customer service. Of course, we also try to ensure that you will
be getting a good price along the way, but that is more for you
to determine -- we don't pretend that we are experts in all the
different categories we list, so we cannot always determine how
"good" a vendor's pricing is. (One thing we look for are
price guarantees -- that's usually an indication that the vendor
believes they have very good pricing.) You can help us by providing
feedback using the link provided on most pages -- let us know about
your good or bad experiences with a vendor. We will listen, and
use your feedback to further improve our guide.
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When
I "tell a friend" do you capture the email addresses?
Absolutely
not! In fact, we suspect that many "tell-a-friend" services
may do just that. That is why we chose to create our own facility
rather than use some outside service. We also personally find it
annoying to have to remember our friends' email addresses when we
have a mail address book! So we chose to use your local mail agent
to create the message for your friends -- that way you can add to
the message and pick their addresses from your address book -- and
no one else can see the contents or addresses in your email! There
is one down side, and that is that you may not have a default email
agent set up on your computer. In such a case, our link will not
work. Please send us feedback and let us know what you think about
this approach!
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Do
vendors pay for positioning in your listings?
Not
only can they not pay for positioning, they can't even pay to get
listed! To provide an honest service to you, our clients, we maintain
complete control over who we list, how we rate them, and which categories
they are referenced in. The actual order that the listings show
up in may change based on our programming -- ideally we'd like the
order to be random, to be most fair to all the vendors -- but we
haven't found a way to accomplish that yet. So they may be sorted
alphabetically, or perhaps by rating. We will continue to test alternatives.
Since we are also always adding new listings, the vendor reference
list sequence may well be changing each time you use our guide.
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What
do the colors in the listings mean?
We
hope that the consistent use of small amounts of color in our listings
will help make scanning the listings easier. There are five parts
to a listing:
-
The
vendor link (underlined, at the top left of each listing)
-
The
listing text (black)
-
The
vendor name (green) -- This is not a link!
-
Some
highlights of the site (red) -- This will include types of products,
and may also include various special or unique features.
-
The
rating (in green, smaller text) at the end of the listing,
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Why
do you only show vendor name links, not their logos or ads?
There
are actually a few reasons. First, we have long been aware (the
industry is just catching up) that banner ads and flashiness are
more annoying than useful. Recent studies show that people actually
look away from such ads! Second, we don't want you to select a vendor
based on how attractive their logo is! While some logos are instantly
recognizable due to heavy marketing, that doesn't necessarily mean
that the vendor provides a better service than another. We feel
that all of the vendors we list are reputable and provide good value.
We believe that it is more fair to list them in a consistent style.
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How
do you decide what sale ads to list in the category sale pages?
Again,
this is a subjective call. None of the ads themselves are paid for
by the vendor, so that is not a factor. Most of our listed vendors
send us regular updates of sales, specials, and the like. Our reviewers
look at these and select a relatively small number of the ones that
they believe are the most attractive offers. We believe that to
list all of them would not be as much of a service to you -- there
would be so many so as to make it confusing rather than helpful
(a bit like the search engines.) By trying to highlight the really
exceptional offers, we intend to make your shopping experience even
more pleasant, and add more value to the Best
Value Guide.
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I
am a vendor. How can I get listed in the Best
Value Guide?
You
can certianly apply for a listing, but we reserve the right to make
all decisions about what vendor sites actually get listed. Our decision
is based on many things, including our detailed review of your site.
If we have rejected your listing, you may re-apply once per year,
or any time if you have made major design changes to your web site.
To apply, go to our GetListed! page.
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Are
there any types of sites that you never list?
The
purpose of the Best
Value Guide is to help people find safe, reliable
places to shop online. Since this is inherantly geared towards families,
we will not list any adult-oriented sites, nor any that deal with
or advocate gambing, smoking, drug-taking, violence, discrimination,
or any other immoral or abusive behavior.
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Why
do you say that you have no ads, yet there are ads on your "sales"
pages?
When
we bill our guide as "ad-free" we mean two things:
-
The
site is free from ads competing for attention with regular page
content
-
The
vendor listings in the guide are not paid ads, nor is the content
of such listings provided by the vendor.
The
category "Sales, Coupons, and Deals" pages, on the other
hand, are designed to contain ONLY ads -- from some of the listed
vendors. These ads are selected by our editors from hundreds submitted
each week, to present the few that we feel offer the most value
or interest. It's important to realize that no ads will ever appear
for a vendor who is not already listed in the guide, and these ads
represent limited-time offers which are intentionally "contained"
in ads-only pages.
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Why
do you list a relatively small number of sites in each category?
We
believe that the majority of people prefer shopping in a rather
intimate mall that features only high-quality vendors, rather than
in a huge mega-mall that requires significant time and effort to
locate the best vendors.
The
Best
Value Guide is geared for the the majority of net
users who may not be extremely comfortable with computer use, and
don't particularly wish to make complex decisions. While you can
search the myriads of search engines ("which one should I use?"),
you will likely find tens of thousands of entires for any given
topic or category.
Most
of the other shopping guide sites that we researched list hundreds
of sites per category. To us, this doesn't significantly help the
online shopper -- who still has to wade through hundreds of listings
and make some guesses as to where might be the best place to shop.
Our intent is to present a rather small list of top sites in each
sub-category -- thus reducing the guesswork and browsing time to
a minimum while directing the consumer to great shopping sites.
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Why
does the Best
Value Guide
have only 22 shopping categories?
We
actually have almost 150 categories! But in our
quest to keep the guide simple to use, we have grouped the categories
under 22 broad categories. As you will see when browsing, we have
chosen a simple two-level category structure -- when you click on
one of the 22 broad category buttons, a new page quickly opens showing
the small set of sub-categories that are available. Clicking one
of these sub-category buttons brings you immediately to the listings
page (or pages, as we only display 10 vendors per page.)
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I
thought you said no popups! I got a popup right when I entered the
site!
Good
question. Let me explain ... First, when we promise "no popup
ads", we of course refer to paid ads from other companies presented
as annoying pop-up windows. Those you will never find here. The
one small window that slides over some of our pages is really not
a "pop-up" at all, but a part of the displayed page. It
is designed to encourage sign-up to our newsletter, so that we can
continue to provide valuable shopping information to you on a regular
basis. It has also been carefully engineered so that you should
only see it once -- so at least if it does bother you, you won't
see it again! Finally, it has a clearly defined "close"
link to make it go away.
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I
like what I see! Can I put a link to the Best Value Guide on my own
site?
Of
course! We have provided a couple of text links and a few graphic
links, along with brief instructions here.
We do request that sites which don't meet our basic requirements
for inclusion in this guide should please refrain from linking to
us. (For example: no adult sites, sites promoting smoking, drugs,
gambling, drinking, violence, hatred, or immoral behavior.) If you'd
like a reciprocal link from this site, see below.
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I
run a web site. Can we exchange links?
Yes,
and no. Here's what I mean: Our process for listing sites in the
Best Value Guide is very rigorous and is not open to influence by
any means (including payments, contracts, or exchanges.) So you
cannot get your site listed simply by asking for a link exchange.
(You can submit a request for evaluation,
however.)
However, we recognize that there are plenty of nice sites out there
that have lots to offer the consumer, even if they don't make it
into our guide. So we have created a separate LINKS
area to allow these sites some measure of visibility. We will list
a text-only link to almost any site here in a link exchange arrangement
(exceptions being the types of sites that we do not
consider.) Send an email message to links@bestvalueguide.com
to request an exchange. Include in your message some details of
your site, including the content of the text link
you wish us to list (and the site address that the link should point
to), and a link to the page where you have already listed our
link on your site. We will do a very brief review of your site to
ensure that it meets our minimum requirements, and then post your
link. You will receive a confirming email generally within 48 hours.
At
the present time, our links page is very low key, although we have
tentative plans to enhance it as it grows. So why bother exchanging
links with us now? Because we all know that doing so will help both
of our sites to solidify positions in the search engines -- and
that's good for both of us!
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What
does "[IM]" mean when it appears after a vendor name?
This
designation is reserved for products (not vendors) in our Instant
Marketplace section. As explained on the Instant Marketplace page,
these are eBooks and Software products that may be purchased and
instantly delivered via downloads or email. Since these products
are somewhat different than the more typical vendor referrals that
we list, we chose to append "[IM]" to the end of each
name so they can be clearly recognized as product listings. It should
also be noted that we do not assign site ratings to these product
sales sites, so the rating appears as "[0]". This does
not mean that the sites are bad! It does mean that in search results
they will appear after all of the regularly-listed sites.
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