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Idn - International Domain Names
By Adam Dicker
What is an IDN?

IDN stands for Internationalized Domain Name, also known as multilingual domain names. It allows you the possibility to use more characters in domains names, besides letters and numbers. It uses characters available in other alphabets, like accents.

Example of IDN domains:

Chinese IDN – 毒瘤.com which means cancer
If you go to 毒瘤.com you will see the domain is targeted towards cancer but in English.

Romanian IDN – divorţ.com you will see the domain is targeted towards divorce but in English.

Polish IDN – pieniądz.com you will see the domain is targeted towards money/currency but in English.

Greek IDN – βίβλοσ.com you will see the domain is targeted bible/books but in English.

.cn with Chinese results: 例子.cn you will see the domain is samples but in Chinese.

Al these are targeted through http://parkingsite.com and take 5 days to target once a keyword is given.

What browsers support IDN names today?

Only the latest version of Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 support IDN Names directly entered into the browser.

IE6 and earlier versions will not support IDN’s.

What TLD’s or ccTLD’s support IDN?

First of all what I am saying with that question is what extensions can be registered like and IDN. Can I register毒瘤.com? 毒瘤.net? 毒瘤.org? 毒瘤.cn? 毒瘤.jp? and what others can I register.

Here is a list of the ones that I have registered:

.com
.net
.tv
.cc
.jp = Japan
.cn = China
.de = Germany
.gr = Greece
.tw = Taiwan

Do all Registrars support IDN registrations?

No, as of writing this Enom does and so does Domainsite. There are others that do but mot d not. Please check with your registrar BEFORE you register any or you will get stuck with a long name that has no value whosoever.

What IDN’s should you register?

You should use the same principles that you have learnt while registering English domain names. Go after the higher paying ppc terms first. Make sure if there are more than one way to say a word in any language that you get them all as you never know which ones will have the most traffic. I have registered quite a few dual meaning words and it’s never the one I think that has the most traffic.

女孩儿 ; 姑娘 ; 女孩子 all mean girl with slight variations in Chinese. In this case and such a major term, unless you speak the language, grab them all.

Google results for all of them:
女孩儿 - 1,870,000 results in Google
姑娘 - 4,460,000 results in Google
女孩子 - 2,840,000 results in Google

Most IDN’s with Google over 1 million will have some traffic unless you get ridiculous generic terms like ‘the’ which have no value whatsoever.

Also, as with English domains, dig a bit deeper. If loans is taken in the language you want go for things like home loans, car loans, boat loans and so on.

How to find and register IDN’s?

There are many ways to find and register IDN domain names. The best way is obviously if you speak the language but even then you must be careful. Just like in English

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some common words will not actually be used and a short form may be used. In English most people know the word automobile but rarely would use it. Most would use the word car.

This can be illustrated by the two overture scores:

1572 http://automobile.com

18016 http://car.com

Now this does not mean automobile is not a good IDN to register, it just means go after the one that is more likely to be typed in a browser.

Now if you don’t know anyone that speaks a language you are going after, your only choice is to use a good translator software, I suggest you use logos.it

When you enter a word it gives you results in multiple languages at one time and makes it really easy to get a keyword in multiple languages.

For example when you search for the word insurance you get:

English
insurance

Italian
assicurazione

Spanish
seguro ; aseguración

French
assurance

German
Versicherung

Russian
cтрахование

Arabic
تأمين ; ضمان ; كفالة

Albanian
sigurim

Asturian
seguru

Basque
aseguru

Bolognese
asicuraziån

Brazilian Portuguese
seguro

Breton
asurañs

Catalan
assegurança

Danish
forsikring

Dutch
verzekering

Esperanto
certigo

Finnish
vakuutus

Flemish
verzekering

Furlan
sigurance

Galician
seguro

Gujarati
વીમો

Hebrew
ביטוח

Hindi
बीमा

Hungarian
biztosítás

Indonesian
asuransi

Irish
árachas

Japanese
保険

Marathi
विमा

Norwegian
forsikring

Piemontese
assicurassion

Polish
ubezpieczenie

Portuguese
seguro

Punjabi
ਬੀਮਾ
Romagnolo
assicuraziòun

Romanian
asigurare

Sanskrit
क्षेमकरणं

Serbian
осигурање

Slovak
poistenie

Swedish
försäkring

Turkish
sigorta ; sigortalama

Ukrainian
страхування

Valencian
segur

Venetian
assicurassion

Welsh
yswiriant

I have found that just like domains, the one I think will get the most traffic, surprisingly won’t, but the languages I have never heard of get some traffic.

Now let’s see how you go about registering IDN names:

Let’s go to logos.it and look up the Russian word for weasel as an example which is ласка, so now I go download the IDN Domain Conversion Tool then open it up and paste ласка into the space unde the heading IDN Domains and hit the ok button. You will get a code called a PUNY code which is: xn--80aa3ac5a , then take that and add a .com on it and you will end up with this http://xn--80aa3ac5a.com. Now check a whois or try to register http://xn--80aa3ac5a.com and see if you get it. To keep it organized and try to keep my domains in one place I register most of my IDN’s at Enom. There are other choices if you like. You can take the actual ID code and go to and type in the IDN and it will tell you if it’s available without doing the PUNY conversion but you should know how to do it anyways.

When I check now ласка.com is available.
In case you are wondering you cannot register ласка.ru yet as the Russian ccTLD does not support public IDN registrations yet.

If I find an IDN like ਬਿੰਗੋ (xn--f9b5b1c6b7k) should I register .com or .cn or both?

This really depends on how strong the term is, if it’s a great term and you have the $, by all mans register them both. If you don’t my suggestion is get the .com. You will need to do some research here as every country operates differently. Some countries are big on their ccTLD’s while others go for the .com first and only if that’s taken will grab their ccTLD after that.

Personally, I have been registering the .com’s and if it’s a great term I get the ccTLD for that country if its available.

To learn more about IDN Names visit the Domain Name Forum where all the domain experts hang out and chat.

Are all the good IDN names taken?

Absolutely not, take your time and do some mining and you will find gold in them mountains.

Remember don’t expect miracles from IDN domains now, the miracles will come once most of the world has a browser that can support it.

Should you expect to make $ from your IDN’s now?

No, if you are lucky you will have a few that make something., I have registered thousands of these and at least half have traffic so that’s good enough for me to know the future will be great for these. Be patient they will be worth it in the long run.

Is there anything else I should know about IDN’s?

Yes, there is lots more, please take the time to learn about and feel free to ask and post your questions as thre are many IDN experts there and they will usually answer you within a few minutes.

I hope this helps some of you get started in what should be an interesting area of domains

Adam Dicker has extensive experience and domaining expertise. A well-known figure in the industry, Dicker founded High Impact Sites, Inc., a company that owns thousands of high-profile domains and operates the largest Domain Name Forum on the Internet.