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SweepsGoat.com will be unavailable from approximately 11:00 p.m. CT June 23, 2008, through 1:00 a.m. CT June 24, 2008, while we make a few security patches. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update (6/24/08 12:56 a.m. CT): The maintenance is complete. Here are the changes you may notice:

• If you've never listed a sweepstakes on SweepsGoat.com, your first listing must now be approved by a moderator before it appears on the site. This is intended to decrease spam listings.
• Newly-registered users must go through an email activation step before they can log in to the site. This is intended to cut down on automated registrations.
• The login/register functions are now located only at the top of each page (not also on the sidebar).

If you see anything that doesn't appear to be working correctly, please contact us with details of the problem.

Just wanted to let you know we made a few minor tweaks to the SweepsGoat layout today:

• We changed the "Direct Link" label to say "Entry Form" and moved it to a more prominent position in each sweepstakes listing. We hope this will make it clearer to new visitors where they need to go to enter the sweepstakes.
• We added commas between tags on each sweepstakes's tag listing to help with readability.
• We added wording on the user registration page to indicate that the username is publicly visible, but the email address is not.
• We removed "karma" from the user's stats page, since we're not measuring karma.

And now back to your regularly-scheduled sweepstakes-entering... Thanks for using SweepsGoat.com!

Those of you who twitter might be interested to know that now SweepsGoat is twittering too. Thanks to the good folks over at twitterfeed, you can now follow us to get quick notification of the newest top sweeps and our latest blog posts.

Our sweepstakes is over & all the entries have been tallied -- so there's nothing left to do but announce the winners! Here are the lucky SweepsGoat.com users who walked away with some cool prizes:

• Our Grand Prize Winner is matteo56. He won a license for RoboForm Pro (to speed up those sweepstakes entries), a $25 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com (to buy something to read with all the time Roboform saves him!), and a set of 4 Thank You cards from CraftyGoat.com (for when he wins the big one!).


• Our First Prize Winner is dolly6611. She won a RoboForm Pro License and a 3-month subscription to the Sweeping America newsletter.


• The Second Prize Winners are: Anastasia, PowerSweepstaking.comAdmin, & theprizeblog. Each second prize winner won a RoboForm Pro License.

Congrats to all the winners! And thanks again to our prize sponsors for their generosity:

• Siber Systems, makers of RoboForm web form filling software.


• Sweeping America, home of the weekly newsletter for serious snail mail sweepers.

Wondering what the difference is between SweepsGoat.com's Top Sweepstakes and Runners-Up? Here's an explanation from SweepsGoat's About page:

Sweepstakes are listed by popularity, so it's easy to see which sweeps are hot right now. Newly-listed sweepstakes are placed in the "Runners-Up" area until they receive sufficient votes to be promoted to the "Top Sweepstakes" page.

Tonight, we made our first change to the number of votes required for a sweepstakes to be moved to the "top sweepstakes." So if you're looking for newly-listed sweepstakes, you might double-check the Runners-Up tab. And be sure to vote up the good ones (just click the "Vote" button beside the sweepstakes) -- remember, more votes means more entires into our contest.

As our site continues to grow, we'll continue to adjust the number of votes necessary to reach the front page.

Just a quick note about a small change over on SweepsGoat: We're now highlighting the expiration dates for anything ending in the next 24 hours. These "ending soon" sweeps will have their end dates highlighted in bright yellow, so you know you need to enter them ASAP.

Want to win the SweepsGoat sweepstakes by adding new sweepstakes to the site -- but you don't know where to start..? Here are 10 good sources for finding new sweepstakes listings:

Online Sources

• Del.icio.us: See the sweepstakes others have bookmarked by searching del.icio.us. A few words to start with: sweepstakes, contest, instant win
  
• Google Alerts: Let Google email you when it finds new sweepstakes. Try setting up a Google Alert with the same words listed above -- or any others you can think of!


• Website Ads: Yeah, ads can be annoying. But companies are paying big advertising bucks to get you to click on their ads -- & oftentimes they offer something free (like a sweepstakes!) so you're more likely to click. Of course, you'll want to check out the site & make sure it doesn't seem spammy before you give them any info. (Actually, that advice applies no matter how you find a sweepstakes!)


• Blogs: Read blogs regularly? If so, be on the lookout for contests & sweeps on your favorite blogs. These usually offer smaller prizes, but they often have fewer entries & better odds.


• E-mail Lists: If you don't mind churning through extra emails every day, most companies will be happy to alert you whenever they have a new sweepstakes. It's usually as easy as checking an opt-in box on a sweepstakes form -- then they'll deliver the new sweepstakes info straight to your inbox.

Offline Sources

• Newspaper: You can usually find a few sweepstakes in the newspaper. Pay special attention to the coupons section and inserts like Parade.


• Magazines: Many magazines have whole pages listing this month's (or even this week's!) sweepstakes. It's also worth checking if the magazine's website has a contest page -- many do.


• Stores: Gas stations, grocery stores, and fast food restaurants often have signs and displays for their latest promotion.


• Product Packaging: While soft drinks and candy bars may not be good for your waistline, they could make you a winner. Double-check the packaging before you throw away (or recycle) it!


• TV Commercials: It could be worth your while to watch those commercials! If you're the TiVo type, you'll have to keep your eyes peeled while you fast forward through 'em.

Remember, now 'til August 7, you receive 2 entries into SweepsGoat's "Sweepin' Up A Storm" sweepstakes for each new sweepstakes you submit to the site (up to 10 entries per day). Prizes include RoboForm Pro licenses, a Sweeping America subscription, an Amazon Gift Certificate, and more -- so start adding sweeps now to win!

You've probably heard that 7/7/07 is supposed to be the luckiest day of the century... Well, SweepsGoat.com wants to help make it lucky for you! So today, we're adding our own listing to the site's stack o' sweeps: SweepsGoat's "Sweepin' Up A Storm" Sweepstakes.

There are two ways to earn entries into the sweepstakes:

• By adding a sweepstakes listing (earns 2 entries), and/or


• By voting for someone else's sweepstakes listing (earns 1 entry)

Earn up to 10 entries per day throughout the duration of the sweeps (July 7 - August 7). At the end, we'll randomly select our prize winners.

And what are the prizes? We're glad you asked!

• Grand Prize (1): The Grand Prize winner gets a license for RoboForm Pro (to speed up those sweepstakes entries), a $25 Gift Certificate to Amazon.com (to buy something to read with all the time Roboform saves you!), and a set of 4 Thank You cards from CraftyGoat.com (for when you win the big one!).


• First Prize (1): The First Prize winner gets a RoboForm Pro License and a 3-month subscription to the Sweeping America newsletter.


• Second Prize (3): Three Second Prize winners will receive a RoboForm Pro License.

Special thanks to our prize sponsors:

• Siber Systems, makers of RoboForm web form filling software.


• Sweeping America, home of the weekly newsletter for serious snail mail sweepers.

Check out our rules page for more info -- and good luck!

We can't give you the details yet, but we're very excited about SweepsGoat's upcoming contest. A couple of sponsors have donated some great prizes that we think you're gonna love! The official announcement will be coming in the next week or two... be sure to stay tuned!

Do *you* have a great product that SweepsGoat's website visitors would be interested in? Along with on-site advertising for our sponsors, we will also be listing & linking to our sponsors in our contest-related blog posts and on the contest announcement page. If you have a product or service to donate, please contact us by Monday, July 2, and tell us about it.

In an attempt to keep SweepsGoat clutter-free, we've been hiding all the sweepstakes that are past their expiration dates. But where does that leave you if someone calls to say you've won something, and you wanna look up all the details on that (already-expired) sweepstakes?

Don't worry -- we've got you covered. SweepsGoat's new Advanced Search page has an option to search the expired sweeps. It also allows you to search by specific category, in case you want to find all the daily entry sweeps that mention Hawaii, for example.

The link to the advanced search is at the top of every page. Hope you find it helpful! And as always, please get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions.