Website Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A multi-page, student-built website on a historical topic, limited to 1,200 visible student-written words, entered by one student or a group of two to five and judged on historical quality and clarity of presentation.

A Website entry is a history project that lives online. Instead of a paper, a board or a film, the student or team builds a small site of linked pages that tells the story of one topic through text, images, audio, video and interactive elements. A visitor should be able to open the home page, follow the navigation without instructions and come away understanding what happened, why it mattered and how the creators know.

On the eTalenter template built from a United States history contest’s published rule book, Website runs in two divisions, Junior (roughly ages 11 to 14) and Senior (roughly ages 15 to 18), and each division has an Individual class and a Team class. A group is two to five students entering the division of its oldest member, and individual and group entries are judged separately. It is an Off Stage item, scored as Marks out of 100 on the template, with no performance time limit.

The rule book caps the visible student-written words on the site at 1,200, which covers page text, captions and navigation labels but not quotations from sources or the media themselves. Like every category in that contest, a website also carries a process paper of up to 500 words and an annotated bibliography, so the judges can see how the topic was chosen, researched and shaped, and which sources sit behind each page.

Judging is done by reading and browsing the site, not by watching a presentation. As in the other categories, the rule book states that judges do not assign numerical scores and instead work together to rank entries. Organisers on eTalenter still need numbers to tabulate, so the template stores a mark out of 100 and the placement ranks are contest-level configuration. Coordinators should follow their own contest’s rules for the site-building platform, file size and how entries are submitted.

Where Website is run

On eTalenter the Website item appears in one template, the history-contest template for the United States, beside Paper, Exhibit, Documentary and Performance. Digital-project categories are increasingly common in school history fairs, media-studies showcases and heritage projects elsewhere, but word counts, permitted platforms and how entries are viewed vary by event, so a coordinator should copy the rules of the contest they are actually running.

• United States

Key facts

• Individual or Team: one student, or a group of two to five who enter the division of their oldest member
• Individual and group websites are judged as separate classes, in both divisions
• Two divisions on the template: Junior (about ages 11 to 14) and Senior (about ages 15 to 18)
• Visible student-written text is limited to 1,200 words; a process paper of up to 500 words and an annotated bibliography are required with the entry
• Off Stage item, scored as Marks out of 100 on the template; the rule book itself ranks entries without numeric scores
• Entered in English on the template; no performance time limit applies

On eTalenter, Website is filed under Off Stage and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Website is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 100.

What judges look at in Website

What a Website panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Historical quality carries the weight: the source rule book gives it 80% against 20% for clarity of presentation, so a polished design over a thin argument still ranks low.
• A clear thesis on the home page: the site should state a claim about the topic and every page should serve it, rather than spreading a list of facts across tabs.
• Evidence behind the claims: primary sources such as letters, photographs, maps and recordings, embedded where the argument needs them and credited in the annotated bibliography.
• Significance and theme: judges look for why the topic mattered in its time and afterwards, and how it ties to the year’s theme rather than merely touching it.
• Navigation and usability: a visitor should move between pages without getting lost, with working links, readable text and media that load and add meaning.
• Staying within the limits: 1,200 visible student-written words, and a process paper and bibliography that match what is actually on the site.

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Website under Scoring Setup, or start from the judge scoring and tabulation software guide.

How to prepare for Website

How entrants and their teachers usually get Website right on the day:

• Settle the argument before you open a design tool. Write the thesis in one sentence, then list the pages needed to prove it; a site grows messy when it starts from a template.
• Log every source in the annotated bibliography as you find it, and note which page uses it, so credits are complete when the site is finished.
• Sketch the site map on paper: home page, three to five content pages, one page for sources. Keep the menu the same on every page.
• Count words early. Navigation labels and captions count as visible text, so trim descriptive sentences first and keep the ones that explain why something matters.
• Test on more than one device and browser, and with someone who has never seen the site. Fix broken links, oversized images and low-contrast text.
• Keep a backup copy and a plain list of the pages in case a judge cannot open the live version; confirm your contest’s submission method well before the deadline.
• Draft the process paper while you build so it records real choices and dead ends, not a tidy story written the night before.
• After a loss at a regional round, compare your site with the judges’ comments: if the weak point was the argument rather than the look, add primary sources and sharpen the thesis before the next contest.
• Ideas, not rules: a site that follows one invention from workshop to market; a map-led story of how a neighbourhood changed; a single court case told through the people involved; a timeline whose pages each answer a different why; a local landmark and the debate over its future.

Frequently asked questions

Is Website judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Team entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Can a group enter a Website?

Yes. The template has both an Individual and a Team class in each division, and a group is two to five students. Individual and group websites are judged separately.

How many words can a Website contain?

The source rule book limits visible student-written text to 1,200 words, plus a separate process paper of up to 500 words and an annotated bibliography. Check your own contest’s rules for how quotations and captions are counted.

Is a Website scored out of 100?

On eTalenter the template stores a mark out of 100 so results can be tabulated. The original contest ranks entries without numeric scores, so placements are organiser configuration.

What is the difference between a Website and an Exhibit?

Both are visual, but an Exhibit is a physical display with a 500-word limit, while a Website is a set of linked online pages with a 1,200-word limit and room for audio, video and interactive elements.

Which age group does a mixed-age team enter?

The rule book places a group in the division of its oldest member, so a team with one senior student competes as Senior.

Want the full judging picture? Read the judge scoring and tabulation software guide, or browse every off stage competition item.