merkus.nnov.ru was the business-card website of a Nizhny Novgorod firm, OOO "Merkus": vehicle maintenance and repair, construction and finishing work, trade and transport services. As the site's page stated, the firm was founded in 1998; the office was located in Nizhny Novgorod on Kovpaka Street, 1A, where a phone number, (8312) 53-27-17, and a phone/fax number, (8312) 53-69-75, were also listed.[1] The known snapshots of the home page span the period from October 2003 to January 2008; during this time the sign on the site changed from "Merkus" to OOO "Askent", while the rest of the text remained the same, word for word.[1][3]

The only section — "About the company"

The archived page is simply arranged: the firm's name at the top, below it a navigation line reading "www.merkus.nnov.ru / About the company", and no other sections are mentioned in the text.[1] As this page stated, the company "has been engaged in repair work and trade since its formation", and over five years it had "developed into a diversified organization".[1]

The list of services fit into four lines: maintenance and repair of domestic vehicles of the makes GAZ, VAZ, KamAZ, MAZ, ZIL, PAZ; body work for vehicles of all makes; construction and repair of houses, shops, offices, apartments and individual premises; trade and transport services.[1] Below that came the address and two phone numbers — and that is where the archived text of the page ends.[1]

The description in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet directory was somewhat more detailed than the site itself: it added the sale of auto parts and freight transport to the list, which were not mentioned on the home page.[4]

Change of sign: "Merkus" becomes "Askent"

In the snapshot from October 7, 2003, the firm is named OOO "Merkus".[1] In the snapshots from December 15, 2006 and January 12, 2008, the same place shows OOO "Askent" — with the domain, the address on Kovpaka Street, both phone numbers, and the full list of services all unchanged.[2][3] In the text, only two occurrences of the name changed — in the page header and in the first sentence.[1][2]

Everything else was left untouched during the renaming: the phrase saying the firm had taken shape "over 5 years", counted from 1998, fit 2003, but it remained on the page as late as January 2008, when about ten years had passed since the founding.[3] Between October 2003 and January 2008 — more than four years — the content of the page, apart from the firm's name, did not change.[1][3]

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site was connected to the Counter.nn.ru counter under number 11160 and appeared in the nn.ru directory under three sections: "Maintenance and Auto Service", "Trade in Parts, Components and Accessories" and "Finishing and Interior Work".[4][5][6]

Next to each link the directory displayed the counter's reading. For "Merkus", both automotive sections showed "Rating: 24" on September 17, 2003,[4][5] in the construction section on August 30 it was 25,[6] and in the snapshot of the same construction section from September 24 it had already risen to 30.[8] By comparison, in the same lists the company "NIKA-STROY" showed 34,[6] and OOO "Kolchuga" (armored vehicles) showed 32.[4] For more on how these measurements worked, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

Among the nearly two hundred sites listed on the winners' page of Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day in the snapshot from late 2004, merkus.nnov.ru does not appear.[7]

The last snapshots

The web archive's index for the domain merkus.nnov.ru holds 21 saved copies (no more than one per month); three of them — from 2003, 2006 and 2008 — have been examined. The latest is dated January 12, 2008; there are no later versions of the site in this set.[3] The archived snapshots do not say when or why the site stopped working; there is nothing at this address today.

From the auto service and construction crew on Kovpaka Street, what remains is a four-line list of services, two phone numbers with the 8312 area code, and the number 11160 in the Nizhny Novgorod counter.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2006 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Maintenance and Auto Service," 2003 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Trade in Parts, Components and Accessories," 2003 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Finishing and Interior Work," 2003 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Finishing and Interior Work," September 2003 (archive)