The results of open registration for the .РФ domain exceeded all expectations.
Today, November 11th, at 12:00 PM Moscow time, open registration for the .РФ zone began for everyone. Over 200,000 domains were registered in the first six hours, exceeding the expectations of even the most optimistic domain industry experts.
According to statistics, the most popular domains are those that match the name of a service or product (approximately 50%), followed by keywords and search engine queries (approximately 30%). Also of interest to internet users are company/brand names (approximately 5%), abbreviations and 2-3-4-character domains without logical connections (10%), and personal domains (first and last names, approximately 5%). The first .РФ domain registered during the open period was rabota.рф (registrar: REG.RU). Other domains registered by REG.RU in the first few hours include video.rf, ryumochnaya.rf, stek.rf, oseny.rf, formula-1.rf, chto.rf, rublevskoyeshose.rf, malchik.rf, parasitarium.rf, kommertsiya.rf, torgovy-znak.rf, titanik.rf, and others.
Within the first few hours, REG.RU was able to process (send to the .РФ domain registry) all previously accepted preliminary applications, with over 70% of them successfully registered. Approximately 5% of the preliminary applications were submitted by foreign companies and individuals who, according to the .РФ registration rules, are not allowed to register domains during the first year of open registration. Almost all non-residents entered into a registration agreement and a trust management agreement with REG.RU and were able to obtain their desired domain names.
The open period required significant preparation. The Internet Technical Center continued to make technical changes to the registration process until late in the evening of November 10th. One of the key objectives was to ensure equal access among registrars to the .РФ domain registry. Therefore, a limit of 4,800 applications per hour was established for each registrar.
The rush for .РФ domains was incredibly high, causing registrar websites to experience outages throughout the day. Now that the bulk of pre-orders have been processed, registrations in the .РФ zone are returning to a stable pace.
Summing up the first day, REG.RU CEO Alexey Korolyuk compared the launch of .RU and .РФ domain registrations: "When .RU domain registrations began, only a few knew about it. The .RU domain was more of a technical launch, but the situation with .РФ is completely different. It was popular from the very beginning, like the child of a Hollywood star. It is rightfully called .RU's little brother, and it will absorb all the love of its audience. Tens of thousands of people registered domains in the new zone today, and millions of internet users are aware of this event."
