Official Rules

1. Purpose and scope

City Best Awards is a community-driven recognition platform that allows the public to nominate and vote for eligible local businesses in specific categories and locations.

These rules apply to nominations, voting, business participation, promotional packages, sponsored placements, award results, and official City Best Awards digital assets. Additional schedules, eligibility notices, or category-specific requirements displayed on the website are incorporated into these rules.

2. Business and listing eligibility

A nominee must represent a legitimate business, organization, professional, service provider, attraction, or other eligible local entity that reasonably fits the selected category and award location.

• One listing should ordinarily represent one real business identity or staffed business location.
• Separate staffed locations may have separate listings and may compete independently in their applicable locations.
• A service-area business may compete in locations it genuinely and actively serves.
• Distant, unrelated, or misleading service areas may be rejected or submitted for additional review.
• Home-based and service-area businesses are not required to display a private residential address publicly.

City Best Awards may request information necessary to verify the identity, location, service area, ownership, category eligibility, or operating status of a nominee.

3. Nominations

Businesses may receive an unlimited number of eligible nominations. There is no package-based limit on how many categories or qualifying award locations a business may be nominated in.

Each nomination is evaluated as a distinct combination of:

For example, “Best Plumber in Las Vegas” and “Best Emergency Plumber in Henderson” are separate nominations even when they relate to the same business.

• A nomination must accurately identify the business, category, and applicable location.
• A business may be nominated in multiple categories when it genuinely provides the relevant products or services.
• Duplicate submissions may be consolidated.
• Incorrect nominations may be corrected, moved to a more appropriate category, held for review, or rejected.
• City Best Awards may add, merge, rename, divide, suspend, or retire categories as needed.
• A nomination does not guarantee publication, ballot placement, finalist status, or an award.

4. Nomination review and removal

City Best Awards may review nominations before or after they are published. A nomination may be withheld, corrected, merged, suspended, or removed when:

• The business cannot reasonably be verified.
• The business is closed, inactive, fraudulent, or misleading.
• The nomination is submitted in an unrelated category.
• The location or service-area claim is inaccurate.
• The listing impersonates or duplicates another entity.
• The submission contains unlawful, abusive, deceptive, infringing, or inappropriate content.
• Continued publication could undermine the integrity or operation of the awards.

5. Voting periods and availability

Nomination, voting, finalist, and results periods will be published on the applicable City Best Awards pages. Dates and times may vary by location, category, or award period.

Votes must be submitted through an authorized City Best Awards voting interface. Votes submitted through email, telephone, social-media comments, paper submissions, or unrelated third-party services will not be counted unless City Best Awards expressly announces an alternative method.

Voting availability may be temporarily interrupted for maintenance, security controls, traffic management, fraud review, or circumstances outside City Best Awards' reasonable control.

6. Voting eligibility and frequency

Eligible members of the public may vote subject to the voting frequency and verification rules displayed during the applicable award period.

City Best Awards may use account, email, device, browser, session, network, telephone, location, behavioral, or other reasonable signals to enforce voting limits and protect the integrity of results.

Voting limits apply to the voter, not merely to a browser, device, email address, or network connection. Attempting to evade a voting limit through multiple accounts, aliases, devices, networks, automated tools, or other methods is prohibited.

7. Prohibited voting activity

The following conduct is prohibited:

• Automated, scripted, robotic, or programmatic voting.
• Purchasing, selling, exchanging, or brokering votes.
• Offering cash, gift cards, prizes, refunds, discounts, or other material compensation specifically in exchange for a vote.
• Creating or using false identities, disposable accounts, fabricated contact details, or unauthorized accounts.
• Voting through bot networks, click farms, proxy abuse, compromised devices, or coordinated fraudulent traffic.
• Interfering with voting systems, security controls, eligibility checks, or other nominees.
• Misrepresenting a nomination, endorsement, ranking, vote total, finalist status, or award result.
• Pressuring employees, customers, contractors, or others through coercive or deceptive practices.

Businesses may ask customers, employees, followers, and members of their community for voluntary support. They may share authorized links, QR codes, digital graphics, email copy, website banners, and other lawful promotional materials.

8. Vote validation and tabulation

City Best Awards may review voting activity before, during, or after a voting period. Vote totals shown during voting, when available, may be preliminary and subject to validation.

Votes may be excluded when City Best Awards reasonably determines that they are invalid, duplicated, automated, manipulated, ineligible, unverifiable, or inconsistent with these rules.

Final results are based on validated eligible votes recorded for the applicable business, category, location, and award period.

9. Free participation and paid nomination packages

A business is not required to purchase a package to be nominated, listed on an eligible ballot, receive votes, become a finalist, or win.

Optional paid packages may include:

• An exclusive page displaying the business's nominations.
• Shareable voting links and QR codes.
• Embeddable website voting buttons, banners, or widgets.
• Social-media, email, SMS, and website campaign copy.
• Downloadable digital campaign graphics and files.
• Traffic, click, referral, or campaign analytics.
• Clearly labeled sponsored placement.

Package limits apply only to included promotional assets, sponsored placements, or related campaign features. They do not limit the number of eligible nominations a business may have.

Current package information is available on the Nomination & Voting Packages page.

10. Sponsored placement policy

• Sponsored placements will be identified with wording such as “Sponsored,” “Featured Sponsor,” or similar disclosure.
• Sponsorship affects promotional visibility only.
• Sponsored status does not add votes or change vote weight.
• Organic nominee listings will remain available to voters.
• A business may sponsor only categories and locations for which it has an eligible nomination.
• Sponsored inventory may rotate among multiple participating businesses.
• Sponsorship does not guarantee a particular number of impressions, visits, votes, ranking position, or result unless expressly stated in the purchased offer.

11. Finalists, winners, and ties

City Best Awards may recognize one or more winners, finalists, runners-up, or placement levels for an eligible category and location.

When two or more nominees have the same validated result, City Best Awards may recognize a tie, apply a published tie-breaking method, extend review, or recognize multiple recipients.

Categories may be withheld, combined, deferred, or closed when there are too few eligible nominees, insufficient validated participation, unresolved eligibility concerns, technical problems, or other circumstances that prevent a meaningful result.

12. Corrections and result changes

City Best Awards may correct clerical, technical, category, location, identity, eligibility, or tabulation errors.

Preliminary or published results may be corrected when material invalid voting, incorrect nominee information, fraud, disqualification, or a significant technical issue is discovered. Any correction will be made in good faith to preserve the integrity of the applicable award.

13. Winner recognition and official digital award assets

Winning is not conditioned on purchasing an award product. Verified winners may accurately identify themselves in plain text by the award title they received.

Official City Best Awards badges, certificates, logos, templates, graphics, animations, verification marks, and other branded award materials may require a separate digital asset purchase and license.

An official digital asset license applies only to the specific:

A business that wins multiple categories or locations may purchase assets for one, several, or all eligible awards. Multi-award pricing or digital bundles may be offered.

14. Digital-only products

City Best Awards will offer digital products only for the current award program unless otherwise expressly announced. No printed plaques, signs, decals, certificates, trophies, or shipped merchandise are included.

A digital package may include print-ready files that the purchaser may arrange to print independently in accordance with the applicable asset license.

15. Intellectual property and permitted asset use

City Best Awards names, logos, badges, graphics, templates, designs, and verification marks are owned by or licensed to City Best Awards and are protected by applicable intellectual property laws.

Unless an applicable license states otherwise, official assets:

• May be used only by the licensed business for the identified award.
• May not be altered to change the business, category, location, year, placement, or result.
• May not be transferred or sublicensed to another business.
• May not be used to imply an award that was not received.
• May not be used after the associated result is invalidated or the license is revoked for fraud or misuse.

16. Suspension, disqualification, and enforcement

City Best Awards may investigate suspected violations and take reasonable action to protect participants, voters, nominees, systems, and award integrity.

Actions may include:

• Removing or invalidating votes.
• Limiting or suspending voting access.
• Holding a nomination or result for review.
• Removing a nomination or listing.
• Disqualifying a nominee from a category or award period.
• Suspending or closing an account.
• Revoking unauthorized or fraudulently obtained assets.
• Referring unlawful conduct to service providers or legal authorities when appropriate.

17. Platform changes and force majeure

City Best Awards may modify schedules, categories, locations, voting methods, package features, availability, or operational procedures when reasonably necessary.

City Best Awards is not responsible for delays, interruptions, lost access, or changes caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including network failures, hosting outages, cyberattacks, third-party service failures, natural disasters, government actions, or other force majeure events.

18. Rule updates

These rules may be revised to reflect operational, security, legal, product, or award-program changes. The version posted on this page governs activity occurring after its effective date unless a separate award notice states otherwise.

19. Questions, corrections, and disputes

Questions about nominations, voting, eligibility, results, packages, or official assets may be submitted through the City Best Awards support page or by emailing contest@citybestawards.com.

Requests should identify the business, category, location, and award period involved and include supporting information when available.