One curator. Real teeth.

The premise

Curatorbait runs on a simple confession: certain websites are built so well that a person who collects the web cannot leave them alone. The box currently holds 13 of them, each preserved as a full-page capture with its swatch tray and a short note naming the thing that hooked us. Designers come here to steal honestly; site owners come to find out whether their work bites.

How the verdict happens

Every cast is opened by the same person and judged on one axis: did this site make a decision, and did it see that decision through? Tasteful-but-interchangeable gets released without hard feelings. Whatever the answer, it arrives in writing — a throw-back that doesn't say why is just noise, and we don't send noise.

The $10 fast lane rents a place at the front of the queue and a 24-hour clock. It rents nothing else. When a fast-lane site gets thrown back, the fee returns in full — the ledger stays clean, and so does the box.

Nothing is sponsored, so nothing is marked sponsored

There is no rate card here and never will be: not for a catch page, not for a Keeper flag, not for position in a row. Because of that, outbound links go out as ordinary followed links — the markup carries no disclaimers because there is nothing to disclaim. Break the first rule and the second stops being defensible, which is exactly why the first rule holds.

The trays don't lie

The little compartment of squares on every catch is read out of the capture's own pixels. No brand book is consulted and no hex list is accepted from anyone — a site files under a shade because the shade is demonstrably on the page. Chase a tile and you'll surface every catch that swims in the same water.

Caught? Say so

Any site in the box may wear the certified curator bait mark. It links to the catch page, costs nothing, and its absence changes nothing — some owners like the trophy, some don't fish for compliments.