apz.ru is a Nizhny Novgorod domain under which the web archive preserved two different sites. In 2001 this address hosted the page of JSC "Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant" (Арзамасский приборостроительный завод)[1], while in the 2014-2018 snapshots it was the site of the Arzamas trading company LLC "Priborsnab" (ООО «Приборснаб»), with the address "607221, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Arzamas, ul. L. Tolstogo, 48" and a phone number with the Arzamas code (83147) 6-15-80[2]. In the directory of the Nizhny Novgorod catalog the address was listed under the name "OAO 'Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant'"[6]. The web archive accessed the apz.ru home page 79 times: the first snapshot is dated 16 May 2001, the last — 22 January 2018[8].

The plant's calling card, 2001

Little survives from the first version of the site. The snapshot of 16 May 2001 shows a heading "Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant," a greeting "Welcome!" and four menu items: "About the enterprise," "Products," "Services," "News"[1]. There was no address, no phone numbers, and no substantive text about the enterprise on the home page — all the content was hidden behind the four links[1]. This was a typical corporate home page of the early 2000s: a greeting and a directory, without a single fact on the first screen.

The metering-equipment catalog of LLC "Priborsnab"

All later saved snapshots show a different site at the apz.ru address — with the heading "Gas meters, rotameters, water meters and other equipment — OOO Priborsnab"[2]. Navigation was reduced to two catalog sections, "Gas, water and heat metering devices" and "Safety devices," plus a "Home" link[2]. As the home page stated, the company carried out "integrated supplies of industrial equipment and commercial metering devices for gas, heat and liquids," and was itself "founded in 2006 and is widely known in the Nizhny Novgorod region, as well as in Russia, for the reliability, promptness and quality of service of the equipment it supplies"[2].

The bulk of the page was taken up by a list of five product groups: gas equipment (domestic and utility meters, turbine SG-16MT and SG-75MT, rotary RVG, vortex RS-4, measuring-computing complexes SG-EK-T and SG-EK-R, electronic correctors EK260, TS210 and TS215, filters FG-16, cabinet gas metering and pressure-reduction units); heat meters — electromagnetic, tachometric, ultrasonic and vortex; rotameter flow meters for aggressive and non-aggressive liquids and gases; water meters — domestic SVK-15 and SVK-20, industrial turbine SVT; density meters of the PLOT series, including the flow-through PLOT-3M, submersible PLOT-3B and "density-and-alcohol meter PLOT-3S"[2]. The assortment was estimated at "over 1000 stock-keeping items"[2].

The connection to the address's former owner remained visible on the page. In the description of the RMA, RM-02, RM-04, RM-06, RMF, RP, RPF, RPO, RE and REV rotameters it is stated directly that this is the output of "OAO 'Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant'"[2]. The order email address was also dual — sales@apz.ru and sales@priborsnab.ru[2].

At the bottom of the page were the contacts: tel./fax (83147) 6-15-80 and "21-21-9," mobile numbers 8 930-700-06-06 and 8 930-700-09-09, an address in Arzamas at ul. L. Tolstogo, 48, and the line "Working hours: 8:00 to 17:00"[2]. No visitor counters are visible in the preserved text of the home page[2]. However, the service fields of the 2018 snapshot contain a set of search keywords — "gas meter, rotameter rm, rotameter, flow meter, water meters, heat meter, density meter": the site was counting on traffic from search engines rather than from directories[5].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The address entered the census from the directory of the Nizhny Novgorod catalog, where the entry described apz.ru as the plant's official site with information about the enterprise and its product range[6]. By the time of the surviving snapshots this description no longer matched the page's contents: a trading catalog of a different company was operating under the same address[2].

No popularity figures for the site survive: in the samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating available to us, no visitor-count value is recorded for apz.ru[6]. In the surviving results table for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote of 2004, the domain does not appear[7]. For a plant site and a wholesale catalog this is the usual state of affairs: such addresses lived not by audience but by a phone number and a price list on the first screen, and they took almost no part in the contests of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet (see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating).

How it closed

The Priborsnab site stood motionless for years. The snapshots of 4 January 2014, 16 December 2014 and 14 September 2017 match word for word — down to the list of items and the phone numbers[3][4]. In the snapshot of 22 January 2018 the page has the same heading and the same description[5].

The last snapshot of the home page in the web archive is dated 22 January 2018; there are no later accesses to apz.ru in the index[8]. During the domain survey for this census the address was marked as inactive. How the domain passed from the plant's calling card to Priborsnab's catalog, and what became of it after 2018, does not follow from the archival materials.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, January 2014 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, December 2014 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2017 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, 2018 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — counter.nn.ru directory in the web archive (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Index of apz.ru snapshots in the web archive (archive)