Starting May 1, Ukrainian domain registrars will once again launch a campaign to de-sovereignize the Kyiv domain. The campaign to popularize the KYIV.UA domain is one of the steps in the movement to de-serialize domains across Ukraine. It was initiated by the domain name registrar and hosting provider Cityhost.ua in June 2022.
The main idea of the movement is to motivate users to switch from Russian-language regional domains (KIEV.UA, ROVNO.UA, KHARKOV.UA) to the correct, Ukrainian-language versions of domains (KYIV.UA, RIVNE.UA, KHARKIV.UA). As part of this initiative, from May 1, 2024, for three months, domain registrars will offer discounts and tell users about the importance of choosing domains with the Ukrainian-language spelling of the name of Kyiv. The campaign is initiated by the administrator of the national domain UA LLC «Hostmaster».
It is noted that the capital domain is the most popular among all regional domain zones. That is why it has received the most attention. However, as part of the campaign, participants remind that the problem of Russified domains is wider.
Currently, there are 17 incorrect local domains in our domain system that were created in the early 1990s. They contain Russified, communalized, and sometimes simply incorrectly transliterated names of regional centers.
Registrars participating in the campaign urge users to choose the Ukrainian-language domain KYIV.UA when creating a new website. For those cases when an old Russian-language domain is already in use, a special instruction has been prepared to help gradually transfer the site to the new domain without losing traffic.
It is worth knowing that KYIV.UA and KIEV.UA are mirrored. If a user has, for example, the domain name shop.kiev.ua, then the name shop.kyiv.ua is reserved for him forever. Only one person can register two mirror domains, and this can be done with only one registrar.
Last year, a similar campaign started in August, lasted for two months and showed very good results — 1780 new registrations took place in the KYIV.UA domain zone, the domain grew by 60%.
Prior to the campaign, the Russian-language domain KIEV.UA had 39,725 domains, and KYIV.UA had only 2,781 domains, i.e., it was more than 10 times smaller (statistics for July 2023).
After the campaign ended, the numbers changed: KIEV.UA had fewer, 38,784 domains, and KYIV.UA — 4771 domains (October 2023).
Six months after the campaign was launched, its effect is still ongoing — Russian-language domains are decreasing, and Ukrainian-language domains are increasing. For example, in March 2024, there were already 27618 domains in the KIEV.UA domain zone, while KYIV.UA crossed the 5,000 mark.
Despite the positive dynamics, the Ukrainian-language version still lags far behind the Russified domain and needs the support of users and their informed choice.