.RU Worthless?

[sld7]

Has anyone seen a meaniningful sale?

 

[Lux]

www.mp3search.ru :D

 

[Gerrit]

.COM.RU is free, the only ccTLD that is really free without restrictions (like .TK that does not allow own DNS usage when the domain is free)

Apart from that, paying for a .RU itself may be interesting if you do business in Russia. otherwise: go for a different extention or get a free .com.ru , but only pay for Russian domains if you really have a link with Russia.

 

[edit]

That topic title is priceless. "Are you Worthless?"...

 

[stscac]

Even though the economy is rather weak at the moment, think about how many people arle there and what the potential is (since I think they are coming back to be a power)

-Steve

 

[Shorty]

That topic title is priceless. "Are you Worthless?"...

I thought exactly the same thing! Haha :lol:

As for .RU, I dont think i've ever even heard of any sale. Nothing in the news so i'm guessing its not worth a whole lot yet...

 

[Rob]

I think the use of this extension over the years has done alot of harm. It seems the vast majority of uses include hacking, warez and dare I say it, illegal pornography.

Changing attitudes towards Russia and its TLD will take alot of time - I personally have never taken the slightest interest in owning a .RU domain and thinking about it have never searched or done any research into them. All I know is that if you wander onto a .RU website, its normally somewhere you dont want to, or shouldnt, be.

 

[Kate]

.RU names are selling on a regular basis.
Just look at the recent sales by Sedo.

 

[thefabfive]

.ru is very widely used in Russia. Over 70% of Russian language websites use a .ru address compared to about 20% for .com. The local residence restriction does put a damper on speculation into .ru and new Russian laws about liability of the domain owner AND registrar for website content will further dampen any growth in .ru.

 

[cervantez]

Recent Domain Sales:
giga-byte.ru - SOLD for $2,000

I guess that answers the topic's question.

 

[deet]

Recent Domain Sales:
giga-byte.ru - SOLD for $2,000

I guess that answers the topic's question.

Where did this sale take place?

 

[cervantez]

Where did this sale take place?

NamePros shows 'Recent Domain Sales' section at its homepage, giga-byte.ru sale is featured there. I guess these sales are from SEDO?

 

[Gerrit]

As for illegal sites using .RU : I have come across lots of .com, .ws and .tv domains that sounded so disgusting I'd never even want to see the site they're linked to... Does that mean the TLD's themselves are worthless? I think the majority of people knows well enough that a few porn sites don't make it a true porn domain-extention...

It is a fact that many sites contain illegal adult material (eg child porn, bestiality, etc) are hosted in countries like Russia or Ukraine, the police has more serious issues to solve there than to control servers. Many illegal MP3 services (violiting copyrights on large scale) also are hosted on servers in these countries. I even doubt if mp3search.ru is fully legal, I wouldn't use it anyway.
However, that doesn't make .ru, .com.ru or .com.ua wrong extentions.

 

[faisj]

.COM.RU is free, the only ccTLD that is really free without restrictions (like .TK that does not allow own DNS usage when the domain is free)

Apart from that, paying for a .RU itself may be interesting if you do business in Russia. otherwise: go for a different extention or get a free .com.ru , but only pay for Russian domains if you really have a link with Russia.

Free?

http://www.godomains.com.au/info/com.ru/

$ 330.00 (1 year)

 

[AdoptableDomains]

As for illegal sites using .RU : I have come across lots of .com, .ws and .tv domains that sounded so disgusting I'd never even want to see the site they're linked to... Does that mean the TLD's themselves are worthless? I think the majority of people knows well enough that a few porn sites don't make it a true porn domain-extention...

...However, that doesn't make .ru, .com.ru or .com.ua wrong extentions.

As a non-russian speaking person, which most of the world is, I have no use for .ru. Every .ru domain I've seen is either in Russian, or as stated earlier, porn, scams, gambling, or some other bottom feeding site. I personally have a filter that automatically deletes any email coming in with a .ru domain ending. About 95% of the spam or attempted spam posts to my bulletin boards are .ru email address registrations. I have also disallowed any board registrations by anyone with a .ru email address.

There are probably some legitimate sites, but until they represent a majority I don't intend to trust ANY of them. Same goes for Nigeria.

Basically, my answer to the post subject line....YES, Worthless... unless you exploit the industries that have given it a bad name.

 

[thefabfive]

As a non-russian speaking person, which most of the world is,

Most of the world doesn't speak English either. Russian speaking people have very good uses for .ru - sites specifically for Russians. Is the extension good for speculators? No, it's not. Too many restrictive rules and laws. Worthless? Definitely not. A good keyword domain in .ru gets TONS of traffic.

 

[cervantez]

Every .ru domain I've seen is either in Russian, or as stated earlier, porn, scams, gambling, or some other bottom feeding site.

May be that's because the only .ru domains you visited were domains you were spammed with? According to spam I receive English Internet consists only of drug selling websites.

As for not seeing any meaningful .ru sales. Obviously .ru domain has some value mostly only for a Russian webmaster. To buy a domain from Sedo for example, you can pay by PayPal, which doesn't open accounts for Russia, or by a credit card, which are not widespread in Russia etc. So I guess all the action takes place in some Russian equivalent of Sedo.

Here's one place I found, for example: http://auction.nic.ru/

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Most of the world doesn't speak English either.

No, but it's a much more universal language than Russian, and primarily in the more developed internet users and more capitalist portions of the world.

Russian speaking people have very good uses for .ru - sites specifically for Russians.

True, but I don't see many on this forum, and probably not using very many non-russion language words. Those geared toward Russians would be in Russian.

Is the extension good for speculators? No, it's not. Too many restrictive rules and laws. Worthless? Definitely not. A good keyword domain in .ru gets TONS of traffic.

That was basically my point. However, even if you had a very good traffic name, so many places don't want to pay for Russian traffic. You'd probably have to find somone who speaks the language to find advertisers willling to optimize keywords and match Russian advertisers to the domains. A market yes, but not of monetary comparison to others, and not easy to break into a a foreigner.

May be that's because the only .ru domains you visited were domains you were spammed with?

Actually, my searches don't include the Russian charcter set, so I wouldn't happen upon a Russian site unless it were in English targeted toward the world market, or I were tricked into visiting it disguised in a hidden spam/scam URL. I actually haven't even visited many .ru sites, but see the links either in urls or as hidden URL's under paypal or ebay type html links. I'm sure the English/French/Spanish language .ru sites probably have a higher incidence of bad behavior than those targeted at their own citizens. or most people who would frequent this forum, I'd rate them very near worthless. Better?

 

[thefabfive]

I wouldn't call Russian traffic worthless. I have an average of $0.10 PPC with ~20% CTR from Russian traffic. And this is with English language ads. Russians need stuff like everyone else. Google adsense is gearing up with Russian language ads.