The number of new resources is less than we would like it to be

Interview of the Head of Circle.Am Rating System Avetis Avagyan to Mediamax Agency and Itel.am portal

- Circle.am is the first resource, which offers Armenian or, as you say, “Armenian-oriented” websites to participate in the rating and to gain access to traffic statistics of registered websites. When was the system created and what way of technical development has it gone?

- Circle.Am was launched in 2001. At that time, there was already another Armenian rating project HyeTopia, which was as a result closed and again launched relatively recently. For a long time, Circle.Am was the only Armenian website of the type. Now it has a few competitors.

Circle.Am is constantly modernized. One can look through all development details, all changes in the archive of Circle.Am. Circle.Am has twice undergone full reconstruction, and minor and medium changes take place constantly. Certain changes are demanded from the participants of the rating, some of the suggestions are received from friends. I, of course, have my own plans concerning the further development of the system, but if anyone has ideas, wishes or simply criticism, I will hear them out with pleasure.

- What is your assessment of development dynamics of Armenian resources, both as to quantity and quality?

- Unfortunately, development dynamics of Armenian resources leaves much to be desired: both quality and quantity indicators might have been improved. 

The total number of new resources is less than we would like it to be. The matter, to all appearances, is the fact that Armenian business does not yet interact with internet too much. Besides, organizations and governmental structures, as a rule, create (if they do) websites for appearances' sake. Information is placed and then nothing is changed for years.

The situation is not bad concerning news resources: there is a number of good news websites. The blog sphere is also on the rise.

Many unsuccessful resources fall on the share of one new good resource. Among new resources there are very often the so-called “portals”, which are loaded with music or videos from other websites by the owners. In fact, such resources do not generate new content, let alone the legal part of hosting music and videos without possessing the corresponding rights.

Recently, a new rule for registration was added at Circle.Am website: if the website mainly consists of materials, already available at websites of other participants, the chances for registering the resource almost equal zero. Another recent change in registration rules is that general low quality of the resource may also lead to refusal to register it. I hope that this fact will become a certain stimulus for creating websites at a higher level.

- Don’t you think that it would be more correct, if exclusively websites, registered in Armenian .am domain zone, participated in the rating?

- I see no reasons for that. If you look at the statistics of using “top level domains” in “amnet” section at Circle.Am, you, probably, will be surprised at the fact that only about 50% of “Armenian-oriented” websites use “.am” domain name. If someone wants to use .com domain, this is normal freedom of choice. For me individually, “.am” looks better and possesses more meaning, however, I consider it wrong to force others to use “.am”.

I believe that one should more actively “promote” the Armenian domain zone. Probably, our government would be able to assist ISOC (an organization in charge of “.am” zone) as to this issue.

- In the process of registration in you system, the user cannot individually choose the section, and the code for set-up is sent with certain delay. What is the reason? How strict are the access rules to registration of resources at Circle.Am?

- Indeed, Circle.Am makes the choice of the section. This is because I want to avoid situations, when the owner of the website chooses the section, thinking about occupying a high position in it, and not about which section really corresponds to that website.

What concerns delays of registration, I hope this is already in the past. The new administrative interface has solved the problem: now the time for receiving the response makes only a few hours.

The rules for registration are quite strict. Of course, everything cannot be revealed during the first check, however if anything unsuitable is revealed later on, the website is either removed, or, if the problem is not that serious, we try to contact the owner in order to eliminate the problem. If there is no response, or if they do not want to change anything, the website is removed from the rating. The websites with “price markup” and “adult content” are usually removed without warning and do not have chances to ever return to our project.  

- The difference in the number of visits, which Circle and, for instance, Coogle Analytics, register, sometimes may reach 30%. What is the reason? Will you, please, tell us about the technology of calculation, applied in your system?

- There are many reasons. The problem, unfortunately, is not a problem that can be easily solved. You, probably, have noticed that at certain websites there are a number of various counters. And the interesting part is that they all indicate different figures. Even Google, if you put it at Analytics and AdSense page, your hopes to see one and the same figure for the number of viewed pages, will be disappointed.

There are many reasons for that: the place of codes on the page, technologies and definitions they use, speed of connection to internet the visitors and the website counters have, as well as their location, etc. At Circle.Am, more detailed information on the issue can be found in the section of Frequently Asked Questions.

- Efforts are usually made in the world to artificially increase the rating of this or that resource. Is Circle.Am secure from such efforts?

- There are certain mechanisms for identifying such overstating. I will not reveal them for obvious reasons. However, it seems to me that the most efficient mechanism is when a website, which is caught in overstating, is removed from the rating forever. Circle.Am is a good tool for promoting Armenian-oriented websites: most likely, it will not be very pleasant to lose such a resource. 

- What is your vision of commercial future of your system? Now, it leaves the impression of a non-commercial project. Do you plan to commercialize Circle.Am?

- There is not much money in Armenian internet yet. By the way, this is the factor that influences the quality and the quantity of resources. Armenian business does not yet take much interest in Armenian internet. And this is a double-edged sword: no interest, because there is no money, no money, because there is no interest.

- Is transformation of Cricle.Am into a more complex web-project, probably, with search elements, likely? 

- Theoretically this is possible, but there are no definite plans yet. Rating participant websites are indexed by search.am engine, which uses Google search. By the way, the data of Cricle.Am are available for all in automated order. You can find the details at the website. So, if someone wants to build something else, for instance a search system with the use of Circle.Am data, we will welcome it.