Lego Vettel

We were thrilled to be awarded “Best in Class” by the Interactive Media Awards today for our recent improvements to website search refinement.

The honor recognizes that the initiative surpassed the key standards of excellence that comprise the web’s most professional work. The site was honored specifically for excellence in the Auction category.

The judging included a range of criteria, including usability, design, innovation in technical features, standards compliance and quality of content. In order to win this award level, Flippa.com had to meet strict guidelines in each area — an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each quarter.

Flippa creator and CEO, Dave Slutzkin, said that “Being granted entry to such an exclusive club by the Interactive Media Awards is testament to our unrelenting focus on connecting website buyers with great websites for sale.”

23 entries were submitted for the Auction category and the IMA judges awarded Flippa.com top honors with a score of 484 from a possible 500 (yes, we’re looking to even improve on that!).

In honor of this achievements, we’re giving 20 credits to the first 23 users (can you see the theme?) who redeem the “BestinClass” voucher. UPDATE: Vouchers have all been taken … in about 5 mins!

But Wait, There’s More …

Some users will no doubt have already noticed that we’ve also changed the way in which we display results. After extensive trawling through our research and analytics, we found that most users do not use all of the information we originally displayed in the listing. Others were no doubt getting a bit lost in the information overload.

To address this, we’ve made the following changes to what we display in listing search results:

  • Larger fonts to improve readability
  • Increased prominence of the website’s domain to aid scanning
  • Adding seller’s feedback and transaction volume
  • Removing profit: its important however it was not usually adding more than what is already indicated with revenue. Profit remains on the listing detail of course
  • Dropping the “established website” indicator on the listing. This is defined by the seller but does not always match the expectations of how buyers might define this

We’re hoping these latest changes make it easier to find websites for sale on Flippa … and increase our score further at the next design awards! What do you think? Love the changes? Hate the changes? Let us know in the comments below.

Image: Daniel Novta