EmbassyWorld is a free web‐based resource that aspires to provide a “comprehensive list of contact resources for all of the world's diplomatic offices” by way of a “bi‐lateral search engine” that allows for searching for “both host location and hosted embassy from dual query boxes”.
While diplomatic and consular representatives are invited to submit their details for inclusion in the EmbassyWorld database, unfortunately there is no information anywhere on the site that identifies the creator of this database, their credentials or whether it is kept up to date. Performing a “who is” search identifies the registrant of EmbassyWorld as FirstAntilles.com a “global offshore services provider” based in the Republic of Panama which assists people seeking second passports, relocation and certain financial services. Many of the links from EmbassyWorld are to other websites registered by FirstAntilles.com, including EscapeArtist.com and Caribpro.com. There are many problems with the site including spelling mistakes, typographical errors and missing and incorrect information. In addition, EmbassyWorld is overly busy with advertisements such that it is difficult to identify the actual content on many pages. In one instance the reviewer encountered a dangerous hijacked URL entry.
The web information company known as Alexa (Alexa Internet Inc, 2009) provides some interesting information regarding EmbassyWorld:
more than 75 per cent of upstream visits are from search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Ask;
close to 50 per cent of downstream visits are to search engines;
70 per cent of visits consist of a single page turn; and
visitors spend less than a minute on the site.
These figures indicate that visitors were probably dissatisfied with this resource. According to Alexa, the top five users of EmbassyWorld come from the USA (22.3 per cent), India (15.4 per cent), Pakistan (11.1 per cent), UK (3.5 per cent) and South Africa (2.8 per cent).
While there are many sites like EmbassyWorld which promise one stop shopping for global diplomatic information, seekers of such information would be better served using a human edited web directory like the Open Directory Project (hwww.dmoz.org/) to locate official and well maintained resources. For the five countries contributing the most traffic to EmbassyWorld information on diplomatic representation can be found as follows:
- 1.
USA (www.usembassy.gov/);
- 2.
- 3.
Pakistan (www.mofa.gov.pk/Green_Book/GREEN_BOOK.htm);
- 4.
UK (www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel‐and‐living‐abroad/find‐an‐embassy/); and
- 5.
South Africa (www.dfa.gov.za/foreign/sa_abroad/index.htm),
