Today, on April 7, 2020, the Russian ccTLD .RU celebrates its 26th anniversary. For many years, .RU has been one of the biggest top-level domains in the world: it ranks fifth among ccTLDs and eighth among all TLDs by the number of registered domain names.
At present, 4,983,611 domain names are registered in .RU, 95.7 percent of which are delegated. This is a very high indicator – it means that the vast majority of domain names in .RU are used and working. Thus, there are 4,515,109, or 90.6 percent of the total domain names with services in .RU. Of these, 38.7 percent are used for full-fledged websites, 23,5 percent – for web applications or single-page sites, 18,5 percent – for mail only, 4,9 percent – for redirects, and 14,3 percent are used for parking.
77.9 percent of domain names are registered by individuals, and the remaining 22.1 percent are registered by companies and organizations. In total, there are 2,110,171 administrators (owners) of domain names in .RU. 75.5 percent, or 1,593,917 administrators manage one domain, and 1.6 percent, or 34,821 manage more than 10 domains. There are 227 domain names for individual administrators and 276 for the same number of legal entities, respectively.
Only 30 percent of them (or 1,497,123 domain names) being “younger” than one year. There are also 764 domain names that were registered 23 or more years ago. According to the first months of 2020, 4,270 new domains are registered every day on average. Users do this through the services of 52 registrars accredited in .RU. Over the past 10 years, 16,259,961 domain names have been registered in .RU.
“All of the last year and the beginning of this year were marked by celebrating the 25th anniversary of .RU. There was a real festive atmosphere for the whole of Runet. The Coordination Center held a lot of amazing events such as the filming of “Internet for All” explaining how Runet helps people. At the moment, during this time of the pandemic, the topic of using internet technologies has become even more important – if not the most urgent thing. And we hope that the .RU domain and all the resources that are located on the .RU domain names will help Russians to survive through these hard times and also find help and support there. And in spite of these difficulties, we will have another event to celebrate in a month: this year the 10th anniversary is being celebrated by another ccTLD–the .РФ Cyrillic domain,” said Andrey Vorobyev, director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ.
Friends and partners of the Coordination Center spoke about what .RU and Runet mean for them:
Sergei Grebennikov, Director of ROCIT:
“To be honest, I did not imagine that Runet and IT would be so vital as they are now: entertainment, telemedicine, communication, education and even sports – all this is available online 24/7. Looking back, I do not think that in December 2019, anyone would have believed me if I’d pointed out that we cannot live without the internet. Now of course everyone will agree with me. During this pandemic, users, the state and businesses have united to preserve their achievements, to get out of this situation with dignity and not to lose anything. As for Runet, we certainly were ready: all services work, and heavy traffic runs. I really believe that on the 10th anniversary of .РФ we will all go offline again.”
Alexei Korolyuk, CEO of the REG.RU hosting provider and domain registrar:
“This year we are celebrating the birthday of .RU during difficult times. But at the same time, we can see that the internet and, in particular, Runet, plays a key role in people's lives and provides opportunities for maintaining business, change and growth, even in an unstable economy. Large organizations, in particular, infrastructure-forming, and those who have been running businesses and projects online for a long time, were more ready for the new challenge in technical terms. From the point of view of marketing, the industry also responded quickly and very sensitively, providing a variety of services both for businesses and for a huge number of people. We can perceive the situation as a time for revising and searching for new opportunities. For offline businesses, this is an occasion to include an online component in their work model, especially since many tools for this are available and easy to use.
The largest internet companies, including REG.RU, shared their experience in organizing the work of dispersed teams, and this information is also publicly available. I am sure that after some upheavals Runet will remain one of the largest ecosystems in the world. The pandemic, on the contrary, will help to further boost development.”
Andrei Kuzmichev, General Director of RU-CENTER:
“This year, Runet celebrates its 26th anniversary, .РФ marks its 10th anniversary, and the 20 th anniversary is celebrated by RU-CENTER. The significant dates for Runet coincided with a serious historical moment for the entire internet community and each individual – the global coronavirus pandemic and the isolation of people at home around the world.
It is on such days as now that we clearly understand what opportunities the internet gives each one of us – the ability to remotely work, study and communicate with family and friends. At the same time, the whole of Runet is undergoing a real test at the moment, starting from communication networks and traffic exchange points, to data centers and engineers of specific services, which maintain an increase in user activity 24/7.
Right now, not only millions of users but also thousands of businesses went online. It is especially pleasing to know how key IT players are helping citizens and businesses: open free access to their information and offer specific assistance to businesses. RU-CENTER also announced a program of assistance concerning IT infrastructure for all companies during these difficult times.
I am sure that the speedy breaking of the usual traditions that is happening right now will lead to the accelerated digitalization of society, businesses and also the economy. Online education, online shopping, conference calls and geographically dispersed work of businesses right now burst into our usual life. All this is not only a great test for us but also a huge space of opportunities for the emergence of new services, new entrepreneurs, and the expansion of existing internet businesses.”
Alexander Ivanyuk, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Association of Documentary Electronic Communications:
“During this challenging time, the national domain zone and the Russian segment of the internet, despite the increased load, are a stronghold of stability and are helping people maintain a familiar lifestyle, continuing to ensure the smooth running of information and communication technologies without any visible deterioration in the quality of services. Of course, the forced self-isolation of a large part of the population will give an impetus to further technological development and will help to accelerate the introduction of online services and platforms in businesses, education and other areas. The increased need for IT will help to identify the existing shortcomings and vulnerabilities and will set the industry community a further development vector. I want to note the important role of the Coordination Center in developing the national ICT infrastructure and ensuring confidence and security of its use.”
Sergei Plugotarenko, Director of RAEC:
It so happened that Runet’s birthdayin 2020 coincided with the peak of events aimed at combating the spread of the novel coronavirus, therefore, first of all I would like to note the cohesion of the industry: RAEC is actively participating and coordinating initiatives related to the recent events, and is monitoring their influence on digital services, the work of internet players and the modification of online services.
RAEC is pleased to note the growth in the number and quality of digital services aimed at normalizing the lives of those who are deprived of usual activities or offline communications. We have once again made sure that Russia has a large number of its own online services that are powerful, competitive and effective. In addition to this, these days, most offline companies and players of traditional markets digitalize their services at an unprecedented pace, going online and collaborating with internet players. All this together demonstrates not only the social mission of the digital environment, but also is the large-scale work for the sake of the users, the citizens.”
By the way: for the .RU domain’s birthday, the Coordination Center has prepared a festive quiz with prizes – join us and answer our questions. There’s a new question every hour. The winner who answers all seven questions correctly will receive a great prize! More details at https://25.cctld.ru/victorina.php
