Bulgaria’s first websites with Cyrillic web suffix expected in six months
The first domain names using the Cyrillic-script web address suffix “.бг” could make an appearance in about six months, but the early rate of adoption was expected to be slow, Bulgarian web hosting and domain registration company SuperHosting.BG said on November 11.
Last month, Bulgaria’s Transport and Communications Ministry said that the country has received the approval of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to implement the use of the “.бг” suffix, nearly five years after Bulgaria formally applied for the country code top-level domain in November 2009.
Previously, ICANN repeatedly denied the request citing possible confusion with the Latin-script country-code domain used by Brasil, namely .br.
The announcement was surprising, but it was a “welcome surprise”, company representatives told a news conference. A task force including officials from several state institutions and Register.BG, the company that manages Bulgaria’s country code top-level domain .bg, would draft the procedures for the implementation of the new .бг domain.
SuperHosting.BG said that an optimistic forecast for the initial rate of adoption was for 4000 websites to be registered using the new .бг domain in the first year it was available. However, in the long run the new domain would make life easier for consumers because the majority of Bulgarian websites targeted domestic traffic, the company said.
(Photo: Jakub Krechowicz/sxc.hu)
