Sites must be fully operational upon our visit. Sites that play music must have a way to turn it off. This includes web ring graphics and banners. Linking graphics from someone else's server may cause you to not win an award if the site you are linking from is down at the time. To ensure your graphics will load at all times, upload the graphic directly to your server.
Permission needs to be acquired from site owners first of course.
If the material on your site is not your own, you need to have written permission from the copyright holder to place the material on your site. If written permission is not obtainable, then have a reference of where the material was obtained, or a link back to the sites from which it was taken. Sites that gather information from their visitors through online submission forms or email must have a privacy policy statement posted in plain view. There must not be any broken links within your pages. This includes all navigation throughout your site as well as web rings, banner links, etc.