Internet in Russia and Ukraine – Part 1. General Information and Statistics – Email Marketing
Internet in Russia and Ukraine - Part 1. General Information and Statistics
Vyacheslav Melnik
User Base
The non-US and non-English Web segments have been boosted by a growing trend towards PC penetration and cheaper Internet access in the last couple of years. The US share of the global population online, once above ninety percent, is now under a quarter, while the number of Internet users who do not speak English at all continues to grow.
The Asia-Pacific region remains a key contributor to the increase in the number of non-English speakers on the Web, but the Russian Internet, aka Runet, demonstrates the accelerated pace of development as well.
The Russian language on the Web was represented by 2.7 percent in March 2003, said Global Reach http://www.global-reach.biz/globstats/index.php3, a consultancy that tracks non-English online populations. The share is quite minor, compared to English with its 35.2 percent. However, the growth rate of Runet is far more exciting; the Russian Internet audience has tripled over the last two years, registering a 40 percent increase annually. The February 2003 Report by SpyLOG http://gs.spylog.ru/interesting.phtmlid=51%20 indicates that the total users who surf the Russian portion of the Internet have reached about 15 million, 60 percent of whom live in Russia and seven percent in Ukraine. Moscow and St.-Petersburg account for 53 percent of the total Internet users in Russia. Similarly, the Ukrainian Internet surveys reveal that the vast majority 70 percent of Ukrainian users live in Kiev, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov and Donetsk, according to freenet.kiev.ua and mct.kiev.ua as quoted in Kyiv Post Business March 20, 2003.
The Ukrainian user base grows as fast as its Russian counterpart. The total Internet users in Ukraine reached 2.5 million by year-end 2002, a 150 percent increase in a year, said the head of the Ukrainian State Committee for Communications and Information Technologies http://mignews.com.ua/events/ukraine/73927.html. Independent marketers confirm the recent trends on the Ukrainian Internet, or Uanet for short. For example, eRus.ru http://www.e-rus.ru/news/2003/03/251511_3939.shtml quoted GfK-USM, a marketing company, as stating that the regular Internet users in Ukraine accounted for 6.4 percent of the total population 3.1 million of 48.4 million in February 2003, and the number of the users who purchased products or services through the Internet was doubled when compared to February 2002.
Internet Access and Prices
Dial-up connection is the most common way of accessing the Internet in both Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian dial-up users, for example, pay $0.1 to $2.0 an hour for Internet access, depending on an ISP, time of day and availability of callback services. The monthly charge for unmetered access in Kiev currently ranges from about $4 midnight to 9.00 a.m. with no callback support to about $40 24-hour access via callback service. The callback service in Kiev will save you about $0.4/hour, an additional fee charged by Ukrtelecom for connection to the local telephone line.
The broadband access is rather expensive, ranging from $40/month IDSN, 64 K/s, 1 GB monthly data transfer to $300/month dedicated line, 64-128 K/s, unlimited transfer with a set-up fee of $200 to 300, plus some hidden charges that are quite common for the local providers. Thus, only corporate clients can enjoy the privilege of broadband subscription.
What Users are Searching for
Like Internet users worldwide, the majority of Russian and Ukrainian surfers search the Web for information. A Yandex poll http://www.yandex.ru/polling/9.html shows that about 24 percent searchers use the Web for easy reference and over 15 percent use it as a research tool. A further 12 percent of those polled said the Internet was a news source for them while only 14 percent preferred online entertainment services. An increase in personal consumption in Russia and Ukraine has made a positive impact on the regional Internet. Russians and Ukrainian are increasingly relying on the Internet in order to evaluate products or services before they make their final decision to buy, whether online or offline. Currently, about 1200 online shops are listed in Magazin.ru, the largest Russian e-commerce catalogue, while CNews.ru http://www.cnews.ru/reviews/online/ reported last year that the total number of operational online shops in Runet was 500 at the beginning of 2002. The most e-shops are online outlets of bricks-and-mortar businesses, but some "pure" online stores have opened their virtual doors as well. Most notable are bookstores such as Ozon, Biblio Globus and Books in Russia, and Bookshop, AzBooKa and Bambook in Ukraine. Despite a certain lack of high-quality online offerings in Runet and Uanet, surprisingly few Western sites offer the products and services that need no customs clearance. For example, web hosting fees in Ukraine are about two to eight times higher than those somewhere in the United States, but the service providers abroad seem to be in no hurry to enter the local market. This is also true for e-books, especially on programming and computing.
Spam and Spamdexing
Despite spam is still flourishing on the Russian Web, unsolicited email messages in Runet are far less aggressive than the email marketing campaigns in the US, when a news subscriber may receive bundles of advert mailings that are vaguely associated with his/her initial subscription.
The more pressing issue for both users and search engines is spamdexing, i.e. unfair tricks aimed at attaining high rankings in search engines. Searching Runet for a particular key phrase can give you dozens of mirrors and doorways. Some successful SE optimizers in Russia and Ukraine openly advertise that their promotion techniques are solely based on building doorways or cloaking, which currently seems unwise on the global Internet.
The top Russian search engines fight against spam in much as the most popular search engines do worldwide. For example, Yandex and Rambler penalize websites for using unfair tricks and encourage Runet users to report search engine spam. Many professional programmers and webmasters also voice their concerns about spamdexing. Articles by A. Shkondin at ClubPro.spb.ru http://clubpro.spb.ru/ provide some classic examples of how spammers play games with the Russian search engines and Internet surfers.
About The Author
Vyacheslav Melnik is the founder and owner of AzureL10n http://azurel10n.com/, a website specializing in web localization, copywriting and search engine optimization for Runet and Uanet, the Russian and Ukrainian portions of the Internet.
vm@azurel10n.com
Internet in Russia and Ukraine – Part 2. Major RuNet and UaNet Search Engines and Directories – Domain Name
Internet in Russia and Ukraine - Part 2. Major RuNet and UaNet Search Engines and Directories
Vyacheslav Melnik
This article offers an updated list of the Russian and Ukrainian search sites to webmasters and website owners who seek to expand internationally. To read General Information on RuNet and UaNet, please go to http://www.azurel10n.com/ar_runet1.htm
Russian Search Engines and Directories
Yandex.ru
Founded in 1997 as a search engine and directory, the site currently provides some additional search and indexing services via Yandex projects such as zakladki.ru, narod.ru, smart system for choosing goods, link popularity check, etc. Yandex indexes the Russian portion of the Internet, Russia-related resources and some Cyrillic Web resources in languages of ex-Soviet republics, Ukrainian in particular. The search engine reads meta tags and considers keyword density and link popularity in its ranking algorithm. The Yandex directory still accepts sites without payment, but the free inclusion procedure may take months and provides no guarantee for placement. To be listed in the directory within three working days, commercial and non-commercial sites must pay US$249 and $49 respectively, plus VAT. Generally speaking, Yandex looks like Yahoo when it comes to the controversial idea of charging for listing in a directory, while a free-inclusion search engine drives primary search results on the site. In addition to HTML-formatted content, the Yandex search engine indexes PDF, RTF and dynamically generated pages. By mid-September 2003, Yandex had indexed about 110 million pages with unique content.
Rambler.ru
The site is a search engine combined with two directory-based rating systems: Ramblers Top100 and Ramblers TopShop. Since its foundation in 1996, the search engine has been indexing the Russian Web segment and the content with domains of other post-Soviet countries. Rambler ignores meta tags. Being listed in the Top100 directory is very beneficial to a site, because the Rambler search engine reviews the listed URLs daily, while other sites are visited every two weeks at most, except news sites that are spidered five times a day. Rambler offers free inclusion service. The search engine conducts over 1.1 million searches a day.
Aport.ru
Search engine and directory. Aport indexes the Russian Web segment and the content with domains of other post-Soviet countries. The ranking algorithm considers meta tags, alt and title tags, keyword density, inbound links, commentaries and some other factors. The search engine indexes dynamic pages. The integrated directory is based on @Rus, once an independent search site. Both search engine and directory offer free inclusion. Aport operates as a constituent part of a Rol.ru portal that, in addition to its search options, offers services nationwide as an ISP and provides access to news Rol.ru/news, sample essays Referat.ru, entertainment pages OMEN.Ru and online games Absolute games.
Google.com.ru - Not Google.Ru!
Despite Google still lags behind the above search engines in Runet / Uanet search traffic, it becomes increasingly popular with the local searchers. Some opinion polls state that Google still accounts for three to nine percent of Runet search traffic, but many webmasters and analysts believe that its share in total searches on the Russian search sites is 10 percent at the very least. Google applies its general indexing rules to any Web content in Russian or related to Russia, whether or not a domain name is specific to Runet. This is a big advantage over its Russian competitors that are not so friendly to the websites with domain names like "yoursite.com", "yoursite.org", etc. and require them email their applications for inclusion. However, there seems little chance of Google taking the lead in Russia and Ukraine unless it improves its search algorithm in terms of the Russian and Ukrainian language morphology flexions, synonyms, etc.. The drawback to morpheme search also means that web copy in Russian or Ukrainian should be crafted specifically for Google.
Many users still confuse Google www.google.com.ru with Google.Ru www.google.ru. The first address is the true URL path to Googles standard interface in Russian, while the second domain name has been cybersquatted on since August 2001. The site "Google.Ru" now operates as an information portal that delivers brand-name Googles search results.
Lycos.ru
Lycos Russia, a branch of Lycos Europe, first appeared on the Internet in August 2001. You can add your URLs to Lycos Russias search engine and directory for free. The search site is very helpful in doing the combined global-and-regional searches. Obviously, Lycos Russia stands a good chance of being ranked higher among the local search sites, but it may take a few more years for Lycos, still popular with Europeans, to ensure its profitability and growth on the Russian Web.
Punto.ru
Search engine. Founded in 2001. Punto can filter out duplicated copy in search results, leaving the most relevant page. The search site has a software module that changes misspellings so that any misspelled keyword or phrase you type in cannot affect search results. Searches in Ukrainian are possible as well. The ranking algorithm places great importance on link popularity.
Turtle.ru
The search engine with a bit peculiar name began operating in mid-2002, having over 81 million pages in its searchable database. Despite its name, Turtle does searches quite fast, but it displays the less relevant search results, compared to the top four engines. Turtle declares that it indexes the regional Internet portions of ex-Soviet republics the CIS countries in their national languages as well as the Russian-language Web resources of other countries. However, when I tested Turtle recently, it failed to do searches in Ukrainian. Automatic submission is not allowed.
Tela.ru
A search engine that spiders the Russian portion of the Internet and considers the Russian-language morphology. There is a Ukrainian search page on the site, but it provides poor search results in Ukrainian. Tela needs no submission for a webpage to be indexed.
Metabot.ru
Meta search engine. Russian and English versions.
Mail.ru formerly known as List.ru
Directory and email services. Free listing in directory database.
Russia on the Net - www.ru
The very first directory on the Russian Internet, founded in September 1995. Russian and English versions. Free inclusion.
Begun.ru
The pay-per-click ad placement provider began operating in 2002. Begun uses a sort of simplified FindWhat model, allowing advertisers to bid on keyword phrases and placing pay-per-click ads on the search sites and portals throughout Runet. Minimum cost-per-click charge is $0.05, and minimum deposit is $5. If you want to drive traffic to your site via Begun, you have to choose proper keywords, write a text link ad and put in your bid on the keywords. Beguns main partners are search engines and directories such as Aport, KM.ru, Refer.ru and Sotovik. PPC advertising currently is rather innovative service on the Russian Net.
Virtalog.ru
Founded in 2000, the directory is designed specifically for exporting its content to other websites. Virtalog includes websites into its index free, but those who want to add the directory to their sites should pay $20 to 2,500, depending on how it will be tailored to the webpages in terms of design and goods/services categories. However, Virtalog offers free limited content within any one category, if you agree to place their banner ad on your page.
KM.ru
Founded in 2002 by Cyril and Methodius Company that is best known in Russia and other post-Soviet countries for its CD reference books and encyclopedias, the site incorporates 20 portals and a daily e-newspaper. Most popular are its directory, and email and Web search services. KM.ru offers free inclusion in its listings. Some 80,000 sites are listed in the directory as of September 2003.
Refer.ru
The directory began operating in December 2000. Refer.ru not only allows you to add your website, i.e. your home page, but in addition to that some internal pages as well. Since April 2002, Refer.ru has been carrying on advertising campaigns in partnership with Begun. In early September 2003, Refer.ru had over 235,000 URLs stored in its database. Free inclusion services.
Top Uanet Search Engines and Directories
The vast majority of the Ukrainian Web resources are in Russian, especially when it comes to news and sales. All the government-related sites have content in Ukrainian, some of them post a Russian version, and in a very few cases they have an English version as well. The most popular servers can be found via the above Russian search engines and directories, but Ukraine has its own national search sites that are much more helpful in doing the country-specific searches.
МЕТА.ua
Search engine and register directory, founded in 1998. META is designed to search the Ukrainian portion of the Internet as well as Ukraine-related sites on the global Web. META conducts some 100,000 searches daily. By mid-September 2003, META had indexed more than 5.5 million URLs and included about 25,000 websites in its register. To be listed in the register, a website must pertain to Ukraine, say geographically or by content. META offers free inclusion services and declares that a site will be listed in the search database within one to two weeks. The indexing process, however, may drag on for months unless you place their banner ad on your website.
UaPortal.com.ua
Directory and news site in Russian and Ukrainian. Founded in April 2000. The free inclusion service may take weeks or months for your site to be added, but an about nine-dollar fee cut down your long wait to 24 hours. In addition, UAPortal recommends placing their banner ad on your site, promising the shorter review time. There were over 16,000 websites listed in the directory in early September 2003.
Google.com.ua
Google in Ukrainian. See Google.com.ru above.
UaPlus.com
A new search engine that began operating in late June 2003. Developed by Miraline Co. in cooperation with the Kiev National University, the Linux-based project uses its own unique moduls instead of Apache, MySQL and other popular software. UAPlus has indexed over five million pages within the Ukrainian and international portions of the Web. No submission required.
ASearch search.avanport.com
Search engine and directory in Russian and Ukrainian. Founded in 1998. Free inclusion. Only Ukraine-related sites are accepted and added to the directory. The search engine indexes the Ukrainian portion of the Internet. ASearch claims to be the leader, holding the most powerful search engine in Ukraine. However, in September 2003, the site showed its statistics of November 2001. That time they had about 18,000 websites listed and over two million pages indexed. ASearchs job section still is very popular with employers and job seekers.
UaPort.net
The site is an ELVISTI project that combines a directory with an information search system on the Ukrainian Web. Free inclusion. Upon submission, UAport invites a website to place their button in exchange for a shorter consideration procedure. The directory had some 6,000 websites listed in its 22 categories in early September 2003.
TopPing.com.ua
Directory, rating system and counter. Free inclusion. Placing TopPing button visible counter on a site is essential for those who wish to use the rating and counting services free.
Alpha-counter A-counter.com.ua
Directory, rating system and counter. Founded in 1998. Free inclusion. Free invisible counter is available, but you need to place a text reference to the provider. More than twenty thousand websites stored in the database as of September 10, 2003.
Bigmir.net
Directory and rating system. Founded in 2000.
About The Author
Vyacheslav Melnik is the founder and owner of AzureL10n http://azurel10n.com, a website specializing in web localization, copywriting and search engine optimization for Runet and Uanet, the Russian and Ukrainian portions of the Internet
vm@azurel10n.com