2016-10-24: Are My Favorite Arabic Websites Archived?

In this work, I collected the top 20 Arabic websites that I like and browse, and in my personal judgment consider as popular (shown in Table 1). For each, I checked its ranking globally and locally based on Alexa Ranking. Then I used MemGator tool to check if it is archived, and got the estimated creation date based on the first memento date. After that, I checked who archived the webpage first (shown in Table 2).

Arabic websites in general were evaluated based on how well they were archived and indexed in my previous work, How Well Are Arabic Websites Archived?. We sampled 300,646 Arabic language pages, and found that 46% are not archived and 31% are not indexed by Google.

Table 1: List of my favorite Arabic Websites and its description

Website	Site Description
maktoob.yahoo.com Yahoo! مكتوب	A major internet portal and email service provider in Arabic language.
aljazeera.net الجزيرة نت	News channel, political, economic, and thoughts.
6arab.com طرب موقع طرب اغاني طرب كوم	Arabic singers and music directory.
alarabiya.net العربية.نت	Arabic language news network. Breaking news and features along with videos, photo galleries and In Focus sections on major news topics.
kooora.com كووورة: الموقع العربي الرياضي الأول	The first Arabic website of football featuring World Championships with an Arab follow-up and analysis of all events of football.
hawaaworld.com منتديات عالم حواء	Women's network concerned with women affairs, life, family, cooking, children, and Beauty.
mbc.net ترفيه، جدول البرامج، مشاهير،أفلام، مسلسلات، برامج تلفزيونية	The Middle East Broadcasting Center Group is the first private free-to-air satellite broadcasting company in the Arab World.
alriyadh.com جريدة الرياض	The first daily newspaper published in Arabic in the capital of Saudi Arabia.
ksu.edu.sa جامعة الملك سعود	Established in 1957, King Saud University is the largest educational institution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and generally considered the premier institute for academics and research in Arab and Muslim countries.
abunawaf.com شبكة أبو نواف - المتعة والفائدة	The site specializes in multimedia and entertainment, it also contains the biggest content for a mailing lists.
eqla3.com شبكة الإقلاع	Sites and forums comprehensive that occur daily with what is new in all fields.
samba.com سامبا: خدمات الافراد و المصرفية الالكترونية	Samba Financial Group (formerly known as The Saudi American Bank), is a large banking firm in Saudi Arabia.
sabq.org صحيفة سبق الإلكترونية‎	Saudi newspaper was founded in 2007. Working in the field of electronic media, dealing with the most important local events in particular and the Arab and international in general.
ar.wikipedia.org ويكيبيديا، الموسوعة الحرة	A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using wiki software in Arabic language.
mekshat.com مكشات - الصفحة الرئيسة	A website interested in trips and camping.
cksu.com تجمع طلبة جامعة الملك سعود	King Saud University students gathering, a group of human energies are working on a good environment for dialogue and purposeful upscale between students and faculty.
uoh.edu.sa جامعة حائل	The University of Ha'il was officially established in 2006. The university is located in the north of Saudi Arabia.
ar-sa.namshi.com موقع نمشي للأزياء, وجهتك الأولى لتسوق الأزياء في السعودية	Website is interested in fashion and online shopping.
arabtravelersforum.com منتديات المسافرون العرب الاصلي	Travelers Arab forum is interested in tourism and travel.
vanilla.sa موقع فانيلا	Website is interested in fashion and online shopping.

Table 2: Alexa Ranking and Archiving Results of My Favorite Websites

Website	Global Alexa Ranking Oct, 2016	Local Alexa Ranking Oct, 2016	Memento count	First memento date	Who archived it first
maktoob.yahoo.com	5	(US)=5	28,866	2009-08-31	IA
aljazeera.net	1,673	(SA)=174	20,468	1998-11-11	IA+BA
6arab.com	113,624	(Egypt)=6,120	12,991	1999-11-27	IA+BA+Archive Today
alarabiya.net	1,548	(SA)=37	9,737	2003-11-26	IA+BA
kooora.com	517	(Algeria)=15	4,658	2002-10-19	IA+BA
hawaaworld.com	10,026	(SA)=166	4,149	2001-01-10	IA+BA
mbc.net	1,195	(SA)=57	3,924	1999-10-13	IA+BA
alriyadh.com	5,136	(SA)=45	3,415	2000-02-29	IA+BA
ksu.edu.sa	6,093	(SA)=87	3,025	2000-03-02	IA
abunawaf.com	24,238	(SA)=413	2,446	2002-05-23	IA+BA
eqla3.com	9,741	(SA)=107	1,906	2000-05-10	IA+BA
samba.com	10,756	(SA)=129	1,451	1999-01-17	IA+BA
sabq.org	793	(SA)=5	1,170	2007-02-23	IA
ar.wikipedia.org	6	(US)=6	1,106	2003-02-09	IA+BA
mekshat.com	24,343	(SA)=404	828	2001-04-28	IA+BA
cksu.com	47,807	(SA)=708	643	2004-02-21	IA+BA
uoh.edu.sa	88,397	(SA)=806	210	2006-07-16	IA
ar-sa.namshi.com	10,968	(SA)=279	85	2012-04-05	IA
arabtravelersforum.com	31,259	(SA)=960	43	2014-11-29	IA
vanilla.sa	118,442	(SA)=1,053	13	2015-03-27	IA

Alexa calculates the global and local ranking of a website based on its traffic statistics. However, this tool is based on calculating the traffic of the domain. For example, if we check the ranking of the Arabic Wikipedia, ar.wikipedia.org, the tool will return the statistics of wikipedia.org instead. Based on this information we note that the top two global ranking in my list had an English domain. The two websites are maktoob.yahoo.com with a global ranking 5 and ar.wikipedia.org with a global ranking of 6. The third top global ranking website is kooora.com with a global rank of 15 and local rank of 15 in Algeria. Followed by sabq.org with a global ranking of 793 and a high local ranking in Saudi Arabia of 5.

In my list, I found that 4 out of the 20 websites were created before 2000. However, when looking in the archive I found that mbc.net domain was created in 1999 and it was in Korean language, then it became the Arabic website written in English in 2003, finally the Arabic version of the website was created in 2004.

mbc.net in 1999
mbc.net in 2003
mbc.net in 2004

Also, as expected I found that the Internet Archive was first to archive the webpage. However, in some websites I found that the Bibliotheca Alexandrina archive had a copy of the exact memento records, that is due to that the BA having duplicate record of the IA. Only, 6arab.com was first archived by three separate archives: archive.is, the IA, and the BA archive.

As for the memento count, I would expect that the websites that existed before 2000 had more mementos. However, two of the four webpages, samba.com and mbc.net, have only 1,451 and 3,924 mementos, respectively, which seems low considering how long they have existed. On other hand, aljazeera.net's first memento was in 1998 and has around 20,468 mementos, which is the second highest memento count in my list after maktoob.yahoo.com with memento count of 28,866.

The website 6arab.com is currently being blocked in Saudi Arabia (and access via the IA is blocked as well), due to violating the Saudi regulation of the Ministry of Culture and Information. So it does not have a local ranking in Saudi Arabia. Instead the top local ranking of this site is in Egypt.

-Lulwah M. Alkwai