arsenal.nn.ru was the website of the Nizhny Novgorod company Arsenal, which traded in tyres, wheel rims and car batteries. The Web Archive took its first snapshot of the home page on 6 December 2000[1], and the snapshots break off in 2012[7]. In the Nizhny Novgorod nn.ru directory the site was listed under the company slogan “Our tyres for your car”[4].

What the site looked like

In December 2000 the address opened with a splash page: the line “www.arsenal.nn.ru”, a “skip the intro” link and the credit “Designed by — NN.RU”[1]. The page description read “the ARSENAL company — our tyres for your car”, and the keyword list ran: “arsenal, tyres, rims, batteries, storage batteries, tyre repair, tyre servicing, consumables, tyre-fitting equipment, truck tyres, michelin, cheap”[1].

By August 2007 it was already a full corporate site with a page search and a numbered menu of twelve sections: “News”, “For partners and suppliers”, “Company information”, “Expert advice”, “Our tyre centres”, “Our services”, “Passenger car tyres”, “Wheel rims”, “Batteries”, “Truck tyres and rims”, “Car service equipment”, “Consumables”[2]. The header restated the profile briefly: “The website of the ‘Arsenal’ company. Tyres, rims, batteries”[2].

The home page was divided into two addresses to customers — one to corporate buyers and one to retail buyers. The former were told that “one of the priorities of the Arsenal company is the improvement of service for corporate clients, organisations having both a small number of vehicles and holders of large fleets” (the quotation is given exactly as the home page printed it). The latter were told that “as of 01.10.2006 ARSENAL has temporarily suspended retail sales of goods for owners of passenger cars”, and that the discount cards already issued would come back into force together with retail trade[2].

The only news item on the home page of 2007 concerned the truck line of business: the company was buying up casings of imported truck tyres in sizes R 22.5 and R 17.5, offering in exchange either a cash payment “from 2000 roubles” or a REMIX tyre at a preferential price. Enquiries were to be made to the Truck Tyre Service Centre at 302/2 Moskovskoye Shosse, telephones 74-94-41 and 74-94-32[2]. At the foot of the page stood the line “2004 © Arsenal” and a credit to the contractor — “design NN.RU”[2]: both versions of the site, the splash page of 2000 and the mid-2000s version, were made by the Nizhny Novgorod portal.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

Arsenal entered the measurable part of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet early. In the Counter.nn.ru rating of 2 December 2000 the site held fourth place in the “Firms (Enterprises)” section: counter reading 3763, rating 171.05, 55 hits. Ahead of it were only “TSS Company”, “AvtoSpetsSbyt” (Auto Special Supply) and “SITEK”[3]. On the same counter pages an Arsenal banner ran in the Nizhny Novgorod NN.RU banner network[3].

In the nn.ru directory — the “catalogue of Nizhny Novgorod websites” — the site stood in the section “Firms (Enterprises) : Auto : Trade in spare parts, components and accessories”. As of 16 August 2002 Arsenal had a rating of 278 and the fifth line of the section: above it were “AvtoSpetsSbyt” (1396), “TSS Company” (896), “Moto&Velo” (Motorcycles & Bicycles, 482) and “INOMARKA.nn.ru” (Foreign Car, 373)[4].

Even more telling is the directory section “The Very Best”, where sites were sorted by the number of click-throughs from the catalogue over the previous 30 days. As of 17 November 2002 Arsenal stood at line 76 with 201 click-throughs and a rating of 645 — close behind “Sotel Nizhny Novgorod” (201 click-throughs) and “Magazin Goryashchikh Putyovok” (Last-Minute Tour Shop, 197)[5]. For a mid-sized trading company that was a noticeable position in the local network; the counting methodology and the overall picture of the rating are examined in the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

How it closed

The last substantive version of the home page to fall within our sample of archival snapshots is dated 12 August 2007[2]. By 23 February 2012 the address served a page consisting of a single word — “Attention” — with no description, no keywords and no text of any kind[6]. The Web Archive's requests to the address break off in November 2012[7].

What is on the domain now does not follow from the material collected: there are no snapshots after 2012, and no resemblance can be traced between the stub page of 2012 and the company's former site.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — counter.nn.ru rating, “Firms (Enterprises)” section, 2000 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, section for trade in car parts, 2002 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, “The Very Best” section, 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Home page, 2012 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Last snapshot of the home page, November 2012 (archive)