The 1997 Webby Awards were the first of the annual Webby Awards, and also the first-ever nationally televised awards ceremony devoted to the Internet. 700 people attended the event on March 6, 1997, at Bimbo's Night Club in San Francisco, California.

Whereas in later years the panelists were official members of International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, in 1997 the awards were chosen and given by IDG's The Web Magazine, which appointed a panel to judge the competition.

The panel of judges was:

Winners and nominees are generally named according to the organization or website winning the award, although the recipient is, technically, the web design firm or internal department that created the winning site and in the case of corporate websites, the designer's client. Web links are provided for informational purposes, both in the most recently available archive.org version before the awards ceremony and, where available, the current website. Many older websites no longer exist, are redirected, or have been substantially redesigned.