Cyrillic domain. Cyrillic domain: to be or not to be? The use of Cyrillic domains

Logically, everything is simple: Cyrillic domain is the domain that is specified Cyrillic characters and is designed to improve readability and increase the memorability of the site address.

Cyrillic domain

Undoubtedly, everyone is accustomed to the domain system in Latin, which has been used for 30 years (since 1984). The emergence in May 2010 of the Cyrillic domain name system caused an incredible stir among WEB specialists. However, even then, many of them were distrustful of such an innovation, noticing many flaws and shortcomings in the use of domains in Cyrillic. This is what we'll talk about today.

Domain in Latin

The use of Cyrillic domains

The first Cyrillic domains appeared on the territory Russian Federation. In early 2010, Cyrillic domain registration became available to trademark owners, and a little later to all Russian residents.

Fact: 183,000 Cyrillic domains were registered in the first six hours of registration of the ".rf" domain zone.

The international organization ICANN has allocated a national Cyrillic first-level domain for the Republic of Belarus (.bel) August 26, 2014.

Fact: for 12 hours of open registration in the ".BEL" zone, 3.5 thousand domains were occupied.

More and more often the question came up:“How correctly will Cyrillic domains be indexed by search engines?” . July 21, 2015 Google dispelled the fears of users, confirming that Cyrillic domains are indexed in the same way as domain names in Latin. As for the mechanics, if the site name is displayed for users in Cyrillic, then the search robot sees it converted to ASCII characters using the punycode method, which guarantees correct processing of the domain.

To date, there are several dozen Cyrillic thematic and regional domain zones, including ".bel», « .ukr". Such domains are used by online stores, bloggers, government organizations and private companies. Many seo-specialists use Cyrillic domains as additional mirrors for their sites or in order to protect themselves fromcybersquatting . If you are not a SEO specialist, then it is better to entrust this business to specialists.

Benefits of Cyrillic Domains

1. Cyrillic domain is easy to read and remember. There is an opinion that the Cyrillic domain is intended for users who have a hard time understanding transliteration and English.
2. It is possible to add keywords to the Cyrillic domain. The question is moot. It is easier to create high-quality naming initially.
3. Large selection of free domain names in Cyrillic zones,whereas in LatindeliciousThere are practically no » domains left. However, in just a few years this advantage will become irrelevant.

Disadvantages of Cyrillic domains

1. Browsers copy website URLs differently. For example, if Mozilla Firefoxallows you to copy a domain from the address bar in Cyrillic, then inChrome the domain is buffered only in Punycode.
2. Difficult to work with SEO optimization. The specificity is such that specialists often have to analyze the reports of various programs by copying page addresses. When using Cyrillic domain names, addresses are converted to UTF URLs and look completely unreadable. The result is complex and intricate.
3. There are problems when working with reference exchanges, specifically GGL (GoGetLinks). As we said, part of the site address ( Domain name) is converted to Punycode, and the page/folder/resource address (URL) itself is transmitted in hexadecimal Unicode (UTF-8, as a rule). As a result, addresses can be very, very long, and due to the limitations of exchange systems, this can be problematic.
4. Creation of corporate mail is not provided. Unfortunately, on this moment creation of a postal address in Cyrillic domains is not provided. You can only use the address in Punycode, but then, for example, instead of "[email protected] domain.bel', the address will look like '[email protected] ". Agree, not very solidly. And even though Google not so long ago, and announced the beginning of support for Cyrillic in mail addresses - until absolutely all mailers begin to correctly perceive it, it will take more than one year.
5. Difficulties with installing and administering CMS. There are no problems with popular CMS, but there are problems with self-written systems.
6. If you are an international company, you must understand thatforeign web users will have difficulty accessing the siteon the Cyrillic domain, including due to encoding problems.
7. And finally: if the Russian keyboard layout is not installed on the computer, there will be problems with entering the address. Of course you can use virtual keyboard, but this is not always possible, and not particularly convenient.

What is the result?

As we mentioned at the beginning, for most SEO specialists, Cyrillic domains have more disadvantages than advantages. There is no doubt that a few more years and the described shortcomings will be an order of magnitude smaller. But Cyrillic domains will continue to be something strange and ambiguous.

Cyrillic domain is the name of the site in Russian (for example, domain.rus). As a variation, such domains are included in a large group of IDN domains. For example: .RF, .RUS.).

A bit of history

When did Cyrillic domains appear? The first domains in Cyrillic appeared in 2001 in the .NET and .COM domain zones (that is, at first only the part up to the dot could be in Cyrillic). And in 2009, the first Cyrillic zone.RF appeared, since that time it is possible to register domains entirely in Russian. By 2019, 800,000 domains have already been registered in the .RF zone (according to the Coordination Center).

Why do I need a Cyrillic domain?

First of all, Cyrillic domains are chosen for sites targeted at a Russian-speaking audience. What site name is easier for your neighbor Irina Mikhailovna to write in a search engine: "millionalykhroz.rf" or "millionalykhroz.ru"? A simple name in Russian helps promote business.

For the same purpose, many owners of domains in Latin register a similar domain in Cyrillic and simply set up a redirect from the Russian domain to English. For example, if you type the domain “Yandex.rf” into the address bar, “yandex.ru” will open. You can check:)

What is Punycode for?

Ever since the advent of the Internet, it has been decided that domains can only contain letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers and dashes. With the advent of Cyrillic domains, nothing has changed. They simply figured out how to translate a domain from Cyrillic to Latin, and called this method Punycode. With the help of it, the conversion of Cyrillic domains takes place. For example, domain roses.rf in Punycode format will look like this: xn--g1acfobj6c.xn--p1ai(domain.RF in Latin). Therefore, do not be alarmed if in your place beautiful name site will display such an unattractive character set.

How to transfer a domain to Punycode?

Modern browsers and instant messengers have built-in support for Punycode and understand Cyrillic domains. But in some cases (for example, to add a domain to cPanel), you need to translate the domain into Punycode yourself. It's easy, instructions below.

Open for .rf domains. Enter your domain name in the field and click Punycode conversion:

Done, the transfer of the domain to Punycode is done. Your domain in Punycode format will appear on the same line:

Instead of a domain - an address of letters, numbers and dashes

This means that you have an IDN . For example: .RF, .RUS.).

In the DNS system, only 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers from 0 to 9, and a hyphen are allowed. Characters of national alphabets cannot be correctly processed by the current DNS service. To make the registration and operation of IDN domains possible, it was decided to convert such domains to Punycode.

To prevent an IDN from being confused with a normal domain after conversion, all IDNs start with a special prefix "xn--". Thus, "xn--c1ad6a..

Domain conversion to Punycode and vice versa is done on the browser side, so when you enter an IDN domain in the address bar, the browser itself converts the entered value into Punycode format to interact with DNS. That is why in the address bar you see a set of letters and numbers starting with "xn--".

Today I decided to touch on the topic of promoting Cyrillic domains. I am very biased towards them, so the article will be subjective, and will not claim to be true. In addition to my opinion, experience, and some points clarified by Google, I asked a friend (the owner of a Cyrillic domain) to also describe the main nuances of working with Cyrillic domains, the pros and cons. As a result, a lot of information turned out, which I will now try to structure.

What is a Cyrillic domain

So, what is a Cyrillic domain. Without delving into the technical side, we can say that such a domain is indicated in Cyrillic characters, and is intended to improve readability and memorability. For almost 30 years of the existence of the domain name system (DNS was developed in 1984), everyone is accustomed to domains in the Latin alphabet, the appearance of Cyrillic domain names in 2010 caused an unprecedented stir in the Internet society. Many IT specialists were skeptical about such an innovation, having already seen the disadvantages of using Cyrillic in domains even then. Ordinary web users rejoiced, 183,000 Cyrillic domains were registered in the first 6 hours of the existence of the ".rf" zone.

The use of Cyrillic domains

The first Cyrillic domains were president.rf and government.rf. Some time later (late 2009 - early 2010), the registration of Cyrillic domain names became available to trademark owners, and later to all residents of Russia. Now there are already several dozens of Cyrillic domain zones, including ".ukr", ".bel", and other regional and thematic domains.

The scope of Cyrillic domain names is very extensive, they are used by government and private organizations, online stores, companies of any level, bloggers. Many webmasters use Cyrillic domains as additional mirrors for their sites. Companies often buy such names just to protect themselves from cybersquatting.

Advantages and disadvantages

Using Cyrillic domains has its pros and cons. For me personally, there are much more cons (including both objective and subjective factors), however, I honestly tried to find at least something in favor of Cyrillic domains. Let's try to list both.

Benefits of Cyrillic Domains

1. Cyrillic domain is easy to read and remember. There is information that such domains are created just for people who do not understand transliteration and English very well.
2. Ability to add keywords to the domain, without using transliteration. IMHO, this point is not very unambiguous, I did not observe a pronounced dependence of the SDL positions on the key in the domain. It is better to spend more time on competent naming.
3. Large selection of free domain names in Cyrillic areas. While there are quite a few “tasty” domains left in the Latin alphabet over the past three decades, the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet gave a chance to find such a domain for your company. However, in a few years this advantage will no longer be, most likely.

On this, perhaps, and all.

Disadvantages of Cyrillic domains

1. Some Browsers copy website URLs differently. For example, in Google Chrome the domain is copied to the clipboard only in Punycode, while Mozilla Firefox allows you to copy the domain from the Cyrillic address bar.
2. Inability to create corporate mail for the domain. Unfortunately, Cyrillic domains cannot yet be correctly used to create an email address. You can only use the address in Punycode. For example, instead of " [email protected] domain.rf", the address will look like " [email protected]". Agree, not very convenient. True, Google not so long ago announced the beginning of support for Cyrillic in mail addresses, but until mailers begin to correctly perceive it and other search engines begin to support it (in Runet, of course, the main mail for the domain is from Yandex) - more than one year will pass.
3. Possible problems when working with reference exchanges, specifically GGL (GoGetLinks). The fact is that part of the site address (domain name) is transformed into Punycode, and the page/folder/resource address (URL) itself is transmitted in Unicode hexadecimal system (UTF-8, as a rule). As a result, addresses can be very, very long, and due to the limitations of exchange systems, there can be problems.
4. There may be difficulties with installing and administering CMS. At the moment, there should be no problems with popular CMS, but there can be difficulties with self-written or not very well-developed systems.
5. There is information that some online antiviruses may not work correctly with Cyrillic addresses pages.
6. Foreign users of the web will have difficulty accessing the site on the Cyrillic domain, due to encoding problems. To date, most browsers have learned to correctly “understand” and display Cyrillic addresses, but there is no 100% guarantee.
7. It is inconvenient for an optimizer/webmaster to work with Cyrillic addresses. The specifics of our profession is such that we often have to copy page addresses, or analyze reports from various programs. The URLs converted to UTF look absolutely unreadable, and you can understand what kind of page it is only by the title (without following the link, of course).
8. And finally, if the Russian keyboard layout is not installed on the computer, there will be problems with entering the address. You can use the virtual keyboard, of course, but this is not always possible, and to put it mildly, not very convenient.

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning, Cyrillic domains, in my understanding, have more disadvantages than vice versa. But I honestly tried to process and systematize all the information found and received through my channels, so that everyone who wants to purchase such a domain could make a decision on their own. I am sure that in another year or two - and the minuses I have described will be an order of magnitude smaller. But for the majority of Internet old-timers who have been working in the WEB field for a long time, Cyrillic domains will continue to be something slightly strange and ambiguous. Perhaps there are just a lot of conservatives among us 🙂

What is your opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of Cyrillic domains?

Cyrillic domain is the name of the site in Russian (for example, domain.rus). As a variation, such domains are included in a large group of IDN domains. For example: .RF, .RUS.).

A bit of history

When did Cyrillic domains appear? The first domains in Cyrillic appeared in 2001 in the .NET and .COM domain zones (that is, at first only the part up to the dot could be in Cyrillic). And in 2009, the first Cyrillic zone.RF appeared, since that time it is possible to register domains entirely in Russian. By 2019, 800,000 domains have already been registered in the .RF zone (according to the Coordination Center).

Why do I need a Cyrillic domain?

First of all, Cyrillic domains are chosen for sites targeted at a Russian-speaking audience. What site name is easier for your neighbor Irina Mikhailovna to write in a search engine: "millionalykhroz.rf" or "millionalykhroz.ru"? A simple name in Russian helps promote business.

For the same purpose, many owners of domains in Latin register a similar domain in Cyrillic and simply set up a redirect from the Russian domain to English. For example, if you type the domain “Yandex.rf” into the address bar, “yandex.ru” will open. You can check:)

What is Punycode for?

Ever since the advent of the Internet, it has been decided that domains can only contain letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers and dashes. With the advent of Cyrillic domains, nothing has changed. They simply figured out how to translate a domain from Cyrillic to Latin, and called this method Punycode. With the help of it, the conversion of Cyrillic domains takes place. For example, domain roses.rf in Punycode format will look like this: xn--g1acfobj6c.xn--p1ai(domain.RF in Latin). Therefore, do not be alarmed if such an unattractive set of characters is displayed in place of your beautiful site name.

How to transfer a domain to Punycode?

Modern browsers and instant messengers have built-in support for Punycode and understand Cyrillic domains. But in some cases (for example, to add a domain to cPanel), you need to translate the domain into Punycode yourself. It's easy, instructions below.

Open for .rf domains. Enter your domain name in the field and click Punycode conversion:

Done, the transfer of the domain to Punycode is done. Your domain in Punycode format will appear on the same line:

Instead of a domain - an address of letters, numbers and dashes

This means that you have an IDN . For example: .RF, .RUS.).

In the DNS system, only 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers from 0 to 9, and a hyphen are allowed. Characters of national alphabets cannot be correctly processed by the current DNS service. To make the registration and operation of IDN domains possible, it was decided to convert such domains to Punycode.

To prevent an IDN from being confused with a normal domain after conversion, all IDNs start with a special prefix "xn--". Thus, "xn--c1ad6a..

Domain conversion to Punycode and vice versa is done on the browser side, so when you enter an IDN domain in the address bar, the browser itself converts the entered value into Punycode format to interact with DNS. That is why in the address bar you see a set of letters and numbers starting with "xn--".

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The ".rf" domain has long entered our lives, along with the ".ru" and ".su" domains. But many experts are still skeptical about it and do not want to take on".rf"-sites . Let's see if they are right.

History of Cyrillic domains ".rf"

At 33 ICANN meetings in November 2008, a Decision was made to separate Russia top level".rf". Its presentation took place in Seoul in October 2009, and in November of the same year, the acceptance of applications for priority registration began. On the night of May 12-13, 2010, the first resources with the ".rf" domain were launched.

This choice of letters (“.rf”) was due to the fact that the domain name had to contain one Cyrillic letter, different from the Latin alphabet, helping to avoid confusion. So, for example, the domain.py" ( P aragua y) is national domain Paraguay.

The ".rf" domain refers to IDN domains - this is a class of domains containing characters of the national alphabet.

The Internet community reacted in two ways to this innovation. One side:

• the address of the site in the native language is easier to remember and reproduce for the group of the older generation that has previously dropped out of active Internet life;
• additional entry keyword in the name of the site;
• the new domain meant a new platform for promotion.

On the other hand, these are technical difficulties that blocked all the pluses:

• browsers did not support entering the address in Cyrillic;
• poor search engines;
• it is not clear how robots will behave. txt, if you write addresses in Cyrillic in it, and nothing is clear at all!;
• how now to promote these terrible krakozyabry instead of a beautiful and slender address in Latin.

Webmasters and SEO specialists did not consideras a real opportunity and recommended to redirect to the Latin versions of the address.

Now all these technical problems resolved, but howpromote the ".rf" domainwe'll talk below.

Some technical information

These Infernal Runes of Mordor, into which Russian letters turn after copying from the address bar, are not at all krakozyabry, but have their own human name - punycode. Punycode converts Unicode characters into ASCII character sequences. This is due to the fact that the standard domain name system uses only sequences of Latin characters, numbers from 0 to 9, and a hyphen. In total, 37 characters are involved in the conversion.

Punycode converters are used to translate from Russian to punycode and vice versa.

These services are very useful when compiling robots.txt. using Cyrillic in files this format and in http headers is forbidden.
Consider examples of correct and incorrect compilation of robots. txt

The wrong robots file looks like this:

User-agent: *
Allow: /blog
Host: semantics. rf

Right:

User-agent: *
Allow: /%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3
Host: xn--80aannkji2an.xn--p1ai

Destroying myths

Despite the fact that many years have passed since the launch of the domain, inpromotion of ".rf" sitesthere are still many myths. The Semantics Mythbusters team is in a hurry to defend his honor!

Myth #1: .rf websites have technical limitations.I

Now all very and not very popular browsers support writing addresses in Cyrillic, this is also confirmed by Wikipedia:

They are not far behind RSS readers, which you can set up on your site. This is due to the versatility of punycode.

Myth No. 2. Sites on the ".rf" domain are poorly indexed

It used to be true, but things have changed a long time ago. For example, Yandex officially confirms that search system does not distinguish between Latin and Cyrillic domain names.

Myth No. 3. It is impossible to buy links to Cyrillic domains

Another outdated myth that for some reason remained alive. Many systems already support promotion Cyrillic domains ".rf", for example, ProPult began to support Russian-language addresses back in 2010.

1. Use the same for pages and Cyrillic addresses in the site structure. That is, links to pages should look like semantics. rf/blog. This is necessary not only for the search robot to save pages in UTF-8 format, but also for the aesthetic side: links in the semantic format will look strange and incomprehensible to the user. rf/blog.
2. Use a direct occurrence of the keyword in the site name. There is little competition in the ".rf" zone, and entry provides an additional advantage.
3. Try to get 2-3 links from other domain sites".rf"
4. Search engines do not distinguish between Cyrillic and Punycode links - their indexing time is the same. But for natural link building, buy links of both types: semantics. rf and xn--80aannkji2an.xn--p1ai
5. Keep in mind that not all services support IDN representation of domains. Use hosting with support for Cyrillic domains.