WRate.net: a meeting place for customers and performers

Many habras-inhabitants are familiar with the problem of choosing the artist for creating and promoting the site. Customers and studios solved problems in their own way: the first often had to overpay the first best studio, the second to work hard on SEO. Far from the capitals, where web construction is less developed, the problem is more acute. In recent years, I had to visit both skins and as a result, there was a desire to implement a service that would be useful to both parties. It turned out from this catalog web studios and advertising agencies WRate.net .

It was decided that the service will begin life as a directory where customers will be able to choose a suitable artist for themselves. The main selection criteria in our opinion are: the price of the site, examples of work, customer reviews, region and a full list of services. This is all presented in four main sections:

• “Catalog” - sorting companies by alphabet, rating (see below), region or comments. The main tool is the choice of the type of service and price;
• "Works" - the page presents all the works from the studio portfolio;
• "Prices" - the section will help in the preparatory stage, when the site already wants, but how much it costs we still do not know. The section lists prices for each type of work and a list of services that can be obtained in this region;
• "Applications" is a section for customers. You can publish your application and collect offers. For executing companies this is all available via RSS.

An interesting innovation was the rating and the method of its calculation. We came to the conclusion that the rating of each studio or agency will depend on several indicators, each of which characterizes the participant from a certain point of view:

• the number of jobs in the portfolio. This is a quantitative indicator;
• implementation rate index, i.e. number of new works lately. Indicates the activity of the participant;
• the duration of participation in the catalog. Something like a studio or agency experience;
• variety of services provided. The more services the executor provides, the more likely it is that the customer will receive the package of services from one source and he will not have to take the layout from one, the design from the second, and the engine from the third studio;
• TCI and PR home page directory. These indicators allow you to assess the weight of the participant in the Internet and the ability to unleash themselves;
• the number of visits from the participant’s portfolio to the sites created by them. It characterizes the quality and interest in the developed sites;
• evaluation studio or agency by users. It is an analogue of public opinion.

We assigned the role of rating components to these seven indicators. Considering the fact that they are all very diverse and to varying degrees should influence the rating, we summarize them with different weighting factors, and we also established a logarithmic dependence instead of a direct indicator for the “duration of participation in the catalog” so that newly arrived studios and agencies could compete on equal terms with old-timers. We plan to further optimize the formula and upon completion of work on the formula, it will be published with all the coefficients and explanations. At the moment we can not do this, because the formula is still vulnerable to "cheating". If you have any suggestions for the formula, then be sure to email us on the mail, on the website, on Twitter , or to me personally through Habra Mail.

The main purpose of creating a rating is to help the client decide on the choice of the artist, all other things being equal. It is interesting to count all the developers and determine who the “dad” is, of course, but for most clients this is not something that would not help, but simply “cannot afford”.
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We have already collected in the catalog more than a hundred companies from such countries as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Participants added about 300 works and indicated their prices for web services. For example, the following work will cost you about this amount:

• creation of a corporate website - $ 1025;
• online store creation - $ 1185;
• layout - $ 135;
• layout (W3C) - $ 195;
• site design - $ 480;
• development of advertising concepts - $ 985;
• media planning - $ 295.

We specifically divided the usual "layout" and "layout (W3C)." Unfortunately, the companies that make the usual layout is still more.

I would like to finish on the positive. On the resource there are reviews that customers find companies. The same reviews come to us in the mail. We are glad that the resource is already helping someone. The project is still young and we would like to hear your opinions and suggestions.