Your Webmaster Reputation Can Matter.
By Rik Tairea

At the beginning of every month I go through the Groundzero Design Award applications. One month as I was having an in-depth look around a submitted website I came upon an"about" page that detailed what part of the world the group of webmasters who ran the site came from and their names.

I had a quick glance at the page, disregarded it and then moved to another, but one second before the page disappeared from view I quickly pressed the stop button.

What had caught my eye was that the city and country that these people had come from was the exact same place that another webmaster who I know of (who doesn't exactly have the best reputation) resides. A detailed look at the list of names showed that the person who I was suspicious of was not associated with this site.

I take running my award program seriously and I follow a set of guidelines when determining what websites earn the Groundzero Design Award. The thing is I was prepared to completely disregard the website in question because it could have been associated with a known "website copier".

Now there could be some unethical behavior displayed on my part in that situation. This is due to the fact that I don't list anywhere in the award criteria that I have to like the webmaster, I have to review the website but this is a different issue (which could make a good article).

My point is that your reputation as a webmaster can matter. The reason I say "can" is because not all webmasters use real names when dealing with others unlike myself because I use my name online everywhere (websites, newsletter, forums, e-mail, etc).

A good reputation can serve you well, where as a not so good one does have the ability to interfere with future online dealings. I don't claim to be Mr. Perfect but a few months ago I made a decision to compose myself when it comes to my online behavior. I spend a chunk of time at A Best Web so I don't go looking for flame wars.

Like I said before, a reputation that does not flatter you does have the potential to interfere with link exchange requests, partnership offers, affiliate programs, network acceptance and so on.

I don't have a super reputation but I don't have a bad one either. So before you go out and start the flame war of the century, or send out mass amounts of spam with your name on it (yes I do know you guys are too intelligent to do this) just think about how this might affect you down the road.

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The above article was written solely for Groundzero and may not be reproduced in anyway on print or other media. This article was written by the webmaster, creator and owner of this site.
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