Bayt.com named Website of the Year

The Middle East’s number 1 job site, Bayt.com, received the Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Best Website in the UAE at the 2006 UAE Web Awards in Dubai last night.

The second edition of the annual awards was staged in association with Dubai Internet City, Microsoft, Business Software Alliance, and the Lebanese Canadian Bank.

Dany Farha, COO of Bayt.com, Mona Ataya, VP of Marketing, and Akram Assaf, CTO, collected three awards on behalf of the company at a gala dinner attended by UAE business leaders, web designers and developers.

Gold, silver and bronze awards were presented in 24 industry categories, from fashion and the arts to real estate. A panel of university professors, web specialists and Microsoft representatives judged entries.

Bayt.com’s Mona Ataya said: “The massive number of registered job seekers and satisfied employers is the best endorsement of the Bayt.com site, but to receive the recognition of our industry peers and the web design community is also immensely gratifying.”

Besides the Best Website in the UAE award, Bayt.com picked up the gold award in the services category and a special award for best strategy website. Competition entries were judged for creativity, ease of use, content, visual design and interactivity.

The UAE Web Awards are open to all web designers and developers, including companies and individual freelancers. This year’s recipients will go forward to compete with winners from other Arab countries in the Pan Arab Web Awards.

Ataya said: “Bayt.com has helped to change the UAE internet landscape, and I hope the site is a great example to the many people in the industry who are dedicated to improving the quality of web architecture in our region.”

Founded in 2000, Dubai-based Bayt.com has offices in 10 regional cities - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, Al Khobar, Doha, Manama, Kuwait City, Amman and Islamabad.

Bayt.com has a database of 1.3 million users, mostly from around the GCC but also the wider Middle East, Africa, Asia, North America and Europe, and more than 25,000 employers.