Afghanistan Online is an independent, award-winning website devoted to Afghanistan. Begun in 1997 by Afghan-American, Abdullah Qazi, it claims to be “ […] the biggest, and most visited Afghan web site on the World Wide Web”. The site is organized into over 30 topical sections ranging from Cooking/Food to Economy to Biographies. On this general interest site, visitors may listen to the national anthem of Afghanistan in Pashto, view artifacts from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul or peruse a chronology of Afghan history from 50,000 BCE to 2005. There are also sections on the Afghan Environment, Government, Education and Islam. Topical sections may include a brief overview written by Mr. Qazi, selected news stories, documents and links to relevant websites. Although a great deal of general information is accessible from this website, much of it has not been updated in the past three to four years and many links are broken. It is disconcerting to find that the first article under the Afghan Woman section’s recent news column is dated December 2010. Nevertheless, useful information can still be found. The Government/Politics page includes important documents such as the Constitutions of Afghanistan, The Bonn Agreement of 2001 and links to political organizations. The Biographies section features brief sketches of current and historical figures, most written by Mr. Qazi. Visitors may view selected poems in the Culture section or maps in the Geography section, or look up a word using the English to Farsi/Farsi to English dictionary in the Language section.
The website is designed with bold maroon and black pages set on a muted yellow, green and red tapestry-like background with a black banner at the top with the title in flowing white letters. The centre panel of the homepage welcomes the viewer and presents a large maroon map of Afghanistan with various symbols of the country. Below the map are links to recent news articles and to Good Afghan News, a related site which will be discussed below. Navigation to the many topical sections is through the left column, or a Jump To dropdown menu on the right end of the black banner. The site is easy to use and pages load quickly. Advertisements to Afghan-related products are prominent on all pages of the site.
Search capabilities are well-developed and allow users to opt for a basic or advanced search. The search button can be found near the bottom of the left navigation column. The advanced search feature offers Boolean-like searching by selecting match with any word, all words or exact phrase. It also has sound-alike matching which is very useful for variant spellings for names and places. Searchable fields include title, description, keyword, body, URL, etc. A date limiter can be used, and results may be sorted by date or relevancy score. There is no provision for printing, e-mailing or exporting from the website and help pages are not available.
The real strengths of the website are the News and Discussion sections. These are current, lively areas. The News (AOP) section opens to a sister website, the Afghan Online Press www.aopnews.com. Here one can navigate various categories of stories, such as today’s news, opinion pieces, Afghan sports, etc. The AOP Links section offers an extensive list of international online news sources arranged geographically. Particularly useful is the compilation of links to South and Central Asian and Middle-Eastern news outlets. Afghanistan has its own category with 12 links, though three of these were broken. Many of the news services are available in English, yet AOP also offers a number available only in Dari or Pashto.
Afghanistan is not often associated with positive news these days, but Mr. Qazi is counteracting this with yet another sister website, Good Afghan News: Afghan News That Will Make You Happy (http://www.goodafghannews.com/), with direct links from both Afghanistan Online and Afghan Online Press. Good Afghan News is arranged so that one may browse the most recent positive news articles about Afghanistan, or zero in on a category such as women’s rights or reconstruction and development. Monthly archives exist back to January 2010.
The Discussion section of Afghanistan Online includes Afghanistan Only forums for general discussion (“politics, society, culture, news, etc.”), sports and Afghan community events. Forums on other topics not directly related to Afghanistan include an open forum, one on health and wellness and On the Lighter Side of Things. Discussion forums have their own search system similar to the advanced search option used for the main website. The open forum on Afghanistan is by far the most active with more than 6,000 topics and more than 110,000 posts, when reviewed. As with Afghan Online Press and Good Afghan News, the discussion forums are current.
Afghanistan Online is primarily useful for accessing news which comes through its sister sites Afghan Online Press and Good Afghan News, serving as a discussion forum for issues related to the country. It also provides an introduction to a country that has gained increasing importance in the world. It is disappointing that most of the non-news sections have not been kept up-to-date. The size of the website no doubt makes it difficult for one person to maintain. The website would be stronger if the topical sections were cleansed of outdated information and broken links and updated.
