The most significant issues for Content were that the site in question:

• clearly identify their target audience;
• define their purpose and how they intend to achieve it (usually with some sort of collection development policy);
• that they indicate both an intent to regularly review links and content, and that they actually appear to do this;
• and that they clearly separate the informational content of the site from any advertising or commercial content.

For Design, we asked that a site:

• adhere to principals of good web design as defined in commonly accepted resources (see Bibliography);
• that no design features interfered with accessibility (ie. ADA issues, known in the web environment as "web accessibility");
• that higher level technical features (such as cookies, java, frames, and animated GIFs) were used minimally or were incorporated into the design in a way that allowed patrons to work around them if needed;
• and the results from the search engine tests.

Based on these criteria (see the Criteria Checklist for more information), we selected as the best of the best in health information megasites (in alphabetical order):