MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - The number of Russian Internet domains has hit 500,000, a network information center said Friday.
"The 500,000th domain will be registered today, when RuNet marks its 12th year in existence," said Alexei Lesnikov, director of RU-Center network information center.
Lesnikov said the center had expected the figure this fall, but that the RuNet - as domains ending in .ru are collectively known - had been developing more rapidly than expected with registration growth rate at 46% a year. .Ru is the second-fastest developing domain on the net after China's.
Lesnikov said Russians preferred the .ru suffix, which accounted for 75% of the total number of addresses registered by Russians. The other 25% were in other common domains.
