bdstudio.info was the website of the internet design studio Banner Design Studio (BDS on the site itself), which made advertising banners, Flash clips and screen savers to order. The site took part in the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day competition — a regional review of Nizhny Novgorod websites — and collected two votes there in the "Best author's site" category[6], while on its 2008 home page it carried a link reading "companies of nizhny novgorod"[2]. The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 2 December 2004[1]; by December 2014 nothing of the studio was left on the domain[3].

Banners, "screen savers" and Flash

The home page of December 2004 opened with a row of five menu items — "HOME", "SERVICES", "PRICES", "PORTFOLIO", "ORDER" — and a link reading "add to favourites"[1]. The studio introduced itself briefly: "BDS is a design studio specialising in the production of banners", promising to carry out "an order of any complexity" in the shortest possible time and assuring visitors that "our prices are among the lowest on the Internet"[1].

The list of services in the same snapshot gives an idea of what was ordered from small design studios in the mid-2000s: banners of "any size", as the page explained, "from an 88x31 Gif button to a 120x600 Flash banner"; Flash clips and intros; screen savers in the client's corporate style; image processing of any complexity[1]. The site's meta description repeated the same list: "Production of banners, screen savers (Screen Savers), Flash clips and Flash intros, graphics for websites, image processing of any complexity"[1]. There was neither an address nor a telephone number on the home page — the studio's only contact was admin@bdstudio.info[1]. In December 2004 an announcement hung above the text: "Super offer! Only until the end of December! 50% discount on any order! Hurry!"[1]

The 2008 page

By November 2008 the range of services had grown: Flash presentations and the processing of "digital photos for the family archive" had been added to the banners and screen savers[2]. Of screen savers the page said: "We are one of the few studios that offer this service, and only we will make a screen saver for you at such a low price!"[2] The tone stayed the same, down to the typos: "Flash will add brightness and memorabilty to your advertising company!"[2]

The most conspicuous thing in this snapshot is the surround of search keywords: above and below the text run the lines "banner creation, banner production, gif flash banner design internet advertising banner how to create a banner production of baners banner advertising flash animation", with the erroneous spelling "baners" deliberately repeated[2]. The keywords of the 2004 version were stuffed by the same device: "Banner banners cheap fast screen savers screen savers flash clips flash intros advertising company money image processing banner design studio bds bdstudio.info"[1]. At the bottom of the 2008 page, among these keywords, stood a link reading "companies of nizhny novgorod"[2].

The Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote

The site's prominence in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet is measured by a single surviving figure. In the final voting table of Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004, Banner Design Studio is listed under number 212 in the "Best author's site" category, in which 36 sites competed: two votes cast by e-mail and none by SMS[6]. For comparison, the leader of the same category — "Nizhny Novgorod Extreme Sports on the Internet" — collected 156 votes by e-mail, and the fan site of the "Start" hockey club received 70 by e-mail and 143 by SMS[6]. The domain bdstudio.info does not appear in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru ranking on which the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating was based.

An empty Drupal, domain parking and someone else's project

The snapshot of 16 December 2014 finds the domain no longer belonging to the studio: it carries a freshly installed Drupal with the Bartik theme, the heading "Welcome to www.bdstudio.info", a login form with registration and password recovery — and the engine's admission that "No front page content has been created yet"[3]. A PHP error with a path on the hosting server is printed over the page: "Notice: Undefined variable: _POST in include_once() (line 1 of /home/srv44932/bdstudio/themes/bartik/template.php)"[3].

In the snapshot of 16 July 2025 the site's place is taken by a Sedo parking page with German text and the note "This domain has recently been registered with Namecheap"[4]. By 6 October 2025 an English-language e-mail newsletter service, Mailstalk, had been deployed on the domain, with prices in Bangladeshi taka (৳ 2999, ৳ 4999 and ৳ 24,999 for the Basic, Standard and Pro plans) and the line "© 2025 — All rights reserved by Mailstalk"[5]. This project has nothing to do with the Nizhny Novgorod studio: the domain name simply passed to a new owner.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2014 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Sedo parking page on the domain, 2025 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, 2025 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)