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1. Will you add my site? (a.k.a. What are the site requirements?)
   
2. How can I increase/decrease my chances of getting approved or getting BuffyGuide Recommended?
   
3. Can I submit a site even if it's not mine?
   
4. What's with the CAPTCHA?
   
5. What does the icon indicate?
   
6. Is there some way that people visiting my site can give it a rating for the Link Database?
   
7. How can I find out what my site's ID number is?
   
8. What's the difference between a clique and a fanlisting?
   
9. How are links sorted?
   
10. How often is the Link Database updated?
    
11. What do ^new and ^pop mean?
    
12. What constitutes a Popular link?
    
13. What constitutes a New link?
    

1. It must not be a pharmacy site, casino site, porn or "adult" site, dating site, warez site, term-paper site, mail-order bride site, or anything spammy. This is a a link database with a fairly narrow focus — the sites should be either related to the Buffyverse or of significant interest to fans of the Buffyverse (the judgement call is mine). It is not a free-for-all directory and links are not added automatically; I look at them and validate them. If I feel that a site is not of sufficient quality and interest to our readers, it will not be added.
2. It must actually be open (not "coming soon" or "under construction").
3. It must be at least a month old, and must have had at least a few updates since the site opened. (Sorry, but way too many people put up a site, submit it, and then never make a single update to it.)
4. It must consist of at least a handful of actual, functioning pages of content.
5. It must be appropriate for the Buffy audience (including young teens), and must not contain any pornographic, illegal, or otherwise unsuitable content, as determined solely by me.
6. If the site contains any NC-17 fan fiction, it must be clearly labeled as such.
7. It must have been updated at some point fairly recently and be updated fairly regularly. (Note: Now that the Buffyverse shows have ended, there's more leeway with this. The important thing is that the existing content is still of interest to fans. If it's a news site, then it will be pretty useless if it's not still updated; if it's a large fan fiction archive or episode guide, then updates aren't so vital.)
8. It must not contain images (other than banners) which are linked directly from another site (or any other bandwidth theft).
9. It must not contain content that I recognize as stolen or plagiarized from another site, unless appropriate credit is given. Even if you do give credit, your site must not consist of a large amount of borrowed material (there should be much more original content than borrowed).
10. It must not have more than a couple of broken images, links, etc. (none on the main page) and must not take an unreasonable amount of time to load.
11. It must have a link to BuffyGuide.com unless there is no feasible place for it.
12. The design/layout need not be spectacular, but it should be decent. All text should be legible, graphics shouldn't be insanely large, it shouldn't be terribly garish, obnoxious, or difficult to navigate, etc. This is, of course, purely subjective. Exceptions may be made if the content is truly original/extensive/impressive.
13. It should avoid most or all of the no-no's listed below.

• Very little content.
• "Mystery Meat Navigation." (See this page for more info.) I don't want to have to guess where a link is going to take me, or spend ages looking around the page for a clue.
• Music or sound clips that start playing automatically when a page loads — even worse if there's no way for me to turn it off.
• Pages with color combinations or background images that make it difficult (or impossible) to read the text.
• Sites in which the main content is in small windows — even worse if I can't resize it. (There's a reason why people buy 19" monitors, you know.)
• Sites that disable right-clicking. It does not prevent people from obtaining your images or viewing your source, but it does prevent me (and others) from navigating via the right-click menu (i.e. "Open link in new tab").
• Dead-end pages — every page on your site should, at the very least, contain a link back to the home page.
• Sites that were obviously designed for a certain monitor size, and become extremely difficult or impossible to read at other sizes. While many designers do favor a certain size, your site should still be functional at other sizes.
• Sites on which each page opens a new window. With rare exceptions, people expect the linked pages within your site to open in the same window. (That is, if I'm at your main home page and I click on "Episode List," it should open in the same window, not open a new one.) I don't want 10 windows open when I'm done looking at your site.
• Sites with really bad spelling and/or grammar (far beyond the occassional mistake; we all make those). If English is your second language or not your strong point, at least use a spellchecker. If you can't be bothered, why should anyone be bothered to look at your site?
• Sites that bombard me with popup ads. Obviously I know that they're often a necessary evil, but there are limits.
• Sites with annoying "features" such as trailing cursors, those godawful page transitions, scrolling text, popup alerts saying "sign my guestbook" or the like, wEirD caPITaliZAtioN, TEXT IN ALL CAPS, etc.

If you lost the original email containing your site ID, just find your link in the database (by searching or browsing the category it's in), and look at your site's listing. It will look like this:

Site Title - Site description.

   — ID: 1234   URL: http://www.url.com

The number labeled "ID" (below the link/title, and to the left of the URL) is your site's ID.

You can also see the ID if hover your cursor over the link to your site. Look at the status bar at the bottom of your browser — you'll see a URL like this:

http://www.buffyguide.com/cgi-bin/linkssql/jump.cgi?ID=xxx

The number at the end, after ID=, is your site's ID number.

Alternate ways to view the URL containing your site ID:

If you use Internet Explorer: Find your link in the database (by searching or browsing the category it's in), hover your cursor over the link to your site, right-click, and choose "Properties."

If you use Netscape: Find your link in the database (by searching or browsing the category it's in), hover your cursor over the link to your site, right-click, and choose "Copy Link Location." Then paste the link into your browser's location bar (where you normally type in the URLs of sites you visit), or anywhere else you feel like pasting it.