Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 18, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
According to pressetext, the winners of the “Website of the Year 2007” vote have been decided. The winning sites determined as part of a pan-European initiative by the Dutch market research institute MetrixLab are divided into two categories: While the “Best Website” is determined according to criteria such as content, design and navigability, the “Most Popular Website” is simply the one for which the most votes were cast. This also explains how the title of “Best Website 2007” could go to the community site Habbo.de while otto.de was simultaneously honoured as “Most Popular Website 2007”.
“We conducted our vote in various European countries”, explains Frans-Anton van Gils, the responsible project manager at MatrixLab, in an interview with pressetext. In Germany, this was already the fourth time the award had been presented. “With more than 550,000 votes cast between the first of November and the tenth of December, participation in Germany was very high this year”, van Gils describes.
A total of 330 websites in 18 categories were analysed this year as part of the award initiative. “In the individual categories, there were sometimes two different winners”, van Gils explains. YouTube was thus chosen as the most popular video site, although Sevenload was able to claim the title of “Best Website” in the same category on the basis of the navigation criterion. In the “Portals” division, Freenet.de was able to take the prize for navigation, while Web.de was more popular with users. Other award winners were Netlog.com, which was declared the most popular community site, and Google, which was able to win both categories in the “Search” area.
The “Website of the Year” distinction is an award initiative by MetrixLab chosen by the public throughout Europe. The project is supported by partners such as the international market research company Nielsen Netratings and the technology-focused weblog TechCrunch.
Further Links:
- MetrixLab
