Classic Rubric

Reviewed on Date Here using the Classic Rubric

First Impression: 15/15

When a visitor first enters your site, they need a reason to stay. Do I want to stay at your site, and if so, why? Can I immediately tell what your site name is and what you offer? Does anything in particular catch my eye and make me want to investigate further?

Layout: 25/25

Does your layout have pleasing graphics, colours, and ample space for content? If your layout is unusable, so is the rest of your site. If your page is an anchored layout, is there any vertical scrolling, is there any jumping, or are there broken navigation links?

Content: 30/30

Content is what the visitor comes to your site for. Regardless of how long your site has been open, visitors expect quality. If your site has been open for a few months, visitors also expect a larger quantity of content. Depending on what you offer, I'll look for different things. Examples of what I'll look for would be: do you have a fairly large number of sites listed ? Are your graphics blurry? Is the content of your guide or tutorial relevant or accurate?

Organisation: 15/15

Organisation is key to having a great site. In the site-making community, having navigation links within your page is an accepted standard. Large amounts of content should be in some sort of scroll box. Most of your text should be aligned to the left.

Spelling & Grammar: 5/5

While spelling and grammar may only seem like minor things, they can affect the overall atmosphere of the site. If you're constantly misspelling words or using the wrong form of "to", visitors will be left with a bad impression. I will point out most of the mistakes I find, but if there are many of them, I may point out a handful and then make general comments.

Sitely: 5/5

The sitely section is a necessity for any site. It holds your link back buttons, affiliates, listers, reviews, and credit sections. They should all be in a reasonable order and properly labelled so that visitors aren't confused.
Link back buttons are also a crucial part of your site and will be graded here based on quality, text readabilty, and image clarity.

Professionalism: 5/5

Owning and running a site is a lot like running a business. If you address the visitor through text and service with respect, then you'll gain a great reputation. The opposite is true as well.
This section also includes taking pride in your site and taking care of the little things. The little things, like link borders around images and proper centering of text can make all the difference.

Final Comments:

This is the section where I'll wrap up your review. If there's a crucial issue with your site, I'll remind you again here. I may also give you some well-deserved praise about the parts of your site that you're doing great on.

Final Score: 100/100

Pros&Cons Rubric

Reviewed on Date Here using the Pros&Cons Rubric

Pros

This section will be a list of sentences about parts of your site that you've done excellent on. I will explain why whatever I've mentioned is good for your site.

Cons

This be another list of sentences, but these will focus on areas of your site that need to be fixed or just tweaked. I'll given an explanation as to what you can do to fix the problem or issue, and why it's an issue in the first place.

Questions&Answers Rubric

Reviewed on Date Here using the Q&A Rubric
In this type of review, you get to ask a set amount of questions about your site. This way you get advice on only what you need. If you're uncertain about a new feature you've added or if your layout works well, this is the review for you.

You may send up to 10 questions at a time. If you send under 3 questions, the review will take place over Neomail. You can submit completely original questions, or take some from the list provided below. It's all up to you!

Sample Questions

What could I do to make my site more visitor friendly?
Does this layout look high quality?
Are my link back buttons high quality?
Do I have any spelling mistakes in *insert section of site *?
What could I do to improve the quality of my banners?

Note: When requesting a Q&A review, please list your questions in the "other" section of the review form.

Midnight

Reviewed on March 9th using the Pros & Cons

Pros

You have 121 sites listed, which is a great feat for a directory that's almost two months old! If you keep adding sites at this pace, you'll grow into a large directory in no time.

You list a large amount of request sites, which are some of the most popular sites on Neopets! It's great that you give your visitors a large selection of request sites to visit.

Your layout is high-quality and easy to navigate. This makes visitors more likely to not only visit Midnight, but enjoy the experience.

You have a wide-selection of quality link back buttons. Visitors love to have choices, and all the link back buttons you have are high quality, which means that visitors are more likely to click on your buttons.

Cons

You don't list any daily sites, which isn't very helpful to the average Neopian. I suggest that you at least list the biggest daily site on Neopets, JubbyJubJack's.

Your listing form is obsolete. For most directories, the standard 'form' is actually a pre-coded link to your neomail that has the form built-in. In the textarea below, I've provided such a link for you to use instead of a form.
<a href="http://www.neopets.com/neomessages.phtml?type=send&recipient=USERNAME&subject=Get_Listed&message_body=Site+URL+-invalid_characters-+A">Get listed!</a>

Clockwork

Reviewed on March 9th using the Classic Rubric

First Impression: 14/15

The first thing I see is your site's name, which is great! The large text and simple styling stands out against the background. One thing I suggest, however, is to reduce the space between the title and the main content box so that they seem more associated with one another.
Beneath your introduction story, there's a large gap after the paragraph and before the welcome header. I suggest that you reduce this space ( and others like it ) to make the content area seem more put together.

Layout: 25/25

Your layout is very high quality, and the navigation is clearly labeled and placed. The colour scheme is pleasing to the eye. The only thing I'd suggest changing would be the stark white colour of the navigation bar, perhaps to a more opaque shade.

Content: 25/30

You have roughly 280 sites listed. Considering the fact that you've been open for about three months, this is a great start! The fact that you've started to list guilds as well also brings a new aspect to Clockwork that will drawn in visitors.
The way you've separated your categories, however, is not convenient to the visitor. If you take a look at The Shelf, you'll see that the categories offered are specific rather than general. In directories, this is the standard that visitors expect. Most visitors expect to find review sites, for example, in their own category instead of in the community category. I suggest that you divide your links into more narrow categories to help your visitors find the site type they need with more ease.
Also, placing general graphics and requests in the same section is very likely to mislead the visitor into thinking that all the sites in that section offer requests. If you separated the categories, it would help prevent confusion on this manner. The 'Request' pixel after every request site, which begins to look redundant after being used so many times , would also be able to be removed.

Organisation: 15/15

The large navigation bar you have makes it very easy for visitors to jump from section to section. Visitors can easily use ctrl+F to find the sites they are looking. Each section is labeled clearly and all the links are separated into three boxes to reduce scrolling. You've done a great job arranging your content efficiently!

Spelling & Grammar: 5/5

Overall, there are almost no obvious spelling or grammar mistakes around your site, which is excellent! I only managed to find the following mistake in the Brother Site section.
You Wrote: The Parisan is a semi-new directory
Rewritten: The Parisian is a semi-new directory ( you misspelled Parisian )

Sitely: 4/5

In the three link back buttons I've shown above, the font used for the work Clockwork is very hard to read and may be off-putting to potential visitors for this reason. I suggest that you discontinue use of these buttons because of that.

Professionalism: 5/5

Clockwork is a very professional site! You present yourself and your directory in a calm, polite manner that makes the visitor feel welcomed.

Final Comments:

Clockwork is a great directory that can only improve by doing what all directories must do: constantly continue to add links. I suggest that you focus on either adding more guild or petpages for the moment, that way Clockwork becomes known for having a large quantity of whichever you chose.
I'm looking forward to seeing how far Clockwork advances in the future!

Final Score: 93/100

Harmonious

Reviewed on March 3rd using the Classic Rubric

First Impression: 13/15

The first thing that I see upon loading the page is the site title and motto, which is great! However, I believe that the title would be much more eye-catching if it were placed on the banner you have, along with the motto. Not only would this save vertical space overall, it would look much more professional. If you'd like to learn how to do this yourself, check out Create Impressions.

Your introduction explains what Harmonious is an a professional, friendly way. You use text effects to your advantage and the link to your lookup is very helpful. One thing I would suggest, however, is to write out the date in the standard format instead of Neopian format, which few people know without looking it up.

Layout: 25/25

Your layout is very simple, yet you have plenty of space for your content. Vertical scrolling, however, is a problem with anchored layouts, because it makes them 'jump' each time a link is clicked. My resolution is 1366 by 768 pixels, and I have a lot of vertical scrolling. As suggested above, I recommend that you make or request a professional banner.

Content: 30/30

You've been open for only a few months, yet you already have 144 shops listed. That's a very large amount in my opinion, which means that you're doing excellent. As long as you keep advertising and sweeping for shops that have broken the rules, you'll do fine.

Organisation: 13/15

You use space very well throughout most parts of the site. In the actual directory, you place the shopkeeper to the left of the shop name and description. You also place a stocked item to the right side of the shop description. I suggested that to keep the images uniform in size ( and save vertical space), that you resize the shopkeeper images down to the size of items. Here's the code to do that:
.shopkeeper {height: 80px; width: 80px;}
Place the code above into your style tags, and then add this to each image code:
<img src="http://i48.tinypic.com/4m1it.gif" class="shopkeeper">
In the Listee Acknowledgment section, you should align the list to the left for easier reading.
The Mail navigation link would make more sense if it was renamed 'Contact' and linked to your mail. This prevents the user from having to navigate to the anchored page that simply contains a link to contact you.

Spelling & Grammar: 3/5

Throughout the site, you use ellipses ( … ) improperly. Ellipses are normally used to indicate an omission in writing. In your rules, you write this: Independent... which indicates that there's more after the word Independent that you've left out. I suggest not using ellipses at all, as they confuse visitors. I suggest that you rewrite your rules like this:
We're independent, therefore, we shall only accept shops that are not a part of a mall. 
In your additional information section, your first bullet point states:
Our listing is arranged in order of shop activity--updated weekly. 
It would read much more fluently if rephrased like this: Our listing is arranged in order of shop activity and is updated weekly. 
Also in your additional information section, your last three points use the phrase  Anyone found out. This reads a bit awkwardly. I suggest removing the word out from all three of the points.

Sitely: 3/5

This button is low-quality. The text is blurry and too small to be easily read. I suggest that you remove it.
The way you've split up your affiliates confuses visitors. I recommend that you keep all your affiliates under a general affiliate instead of separating them.

Professionalism: 5/5

Your introduction, rules, and overall tone is very professional. I felt welcomed and informed by reading through your site. Great job, Silver!

Final Comments:

Harmonious is the leading active shop directory ( in my opinion ) and can only get better. I'd recommend Harmonious to anyone looking for a shop directory. If you fix a few minor layout issues and work on listing more sites, Harmonious is bound to go far.

Final Score: 92/100

Oolong

Reviewed on January 27th using the Classic Rubric

First Impression: 15/15

When I first load your site, I instantly see your high-quality banner and simple, clean layout. Because of the banner, your site's name is instantly provided for the visitor, which is a great way for a site to first present itself.
One things that I would change for your next banner and layout, however, would be the order of the text on the banner. To me personally, it makes more sense to have Oolong on top of the subtitle, a real name and real world pets directory. However, it looks perfectly fine as it is.
Your introduction is short and to the point, which is perfect. It includes the essential information that the visitor needs to know about your site.

Layout: 23/25

The layout is simple and easy to navigate. Your headers clearly stand out and label each section. The navigation coding you've used is very convenient for the visitor.
There is one issue with your navigation, however. The home link does not work, because you haven't added the proper coding to your home page. To fix this issue, make sure you have one follow codes in your home page's coding:
<a name="home"></a> OR <h1 id="home">What's in a name?</h1> One thing I would recommend for future layouts is more space for your content. The width of this layout is large enough, but the small height of the content box makes the content seem "squished" into a small area. Increasing it would reduce scrolling and provide a sense of extra space.

Content: 30/30

You list an amazing amount of pets in a good amount of categories. The one thing that I noticed is that a few pets ( Romantic, Prank, and others ) do not have an UFT/Not UFT status. I recommend making sure that you add one for each pet to make sure the owner's don't get neomails asking to trade when the pets aren't up for trade.

Organisation: 15/15

Oolong is organised very efficiently. Each pet is in the appropriate category and each category is easy to find with the navigational system you use.

Spelling & Grammar: 5/5

Overall, there are very few spelling and grammar errors around your site. I have found a few, however.
If you can't find the category that you are looking for , Here, in the Suggest a Category section, the makes more sense than a.
Under Add a Pet, one of your rules is awkwardly worded. I suggest rewording it like this:
Do not contact owners of other pets listed here, unless you have an actual reason.

Sitely: 4/5

Oolong is hard to read on the button above because of the font used. A pixel font would have suited this button much more.

The animation used in the above two buttons is very distracting and makes them look lower quality. The reason for this is because the focal point of the button is always changing and it looks chaotic. I would recommend removing these buttons because of this.

Professionalism: 5/5

Oolong is a very professional pet directory. You clearly state your rules and that owners should not be contacted unless their pet is UFT.

Final Comments:

Oolong is an established, high-quality pet directory that I would definitely recommend. As long as you stay active and continue to list pets, I can see a bright future for Oolong.

Final Score: 97/100