What are Internationalized Domain Names?
In North America, most people are accustomed to seeing domain names that use characters from the Latin alphabet (A-Z), but what if you’re registering a domain in a language other than English?
There are thousands of languages spoken in the world, with Mandarin Chinese being the most spoken at this time. Languages like Mandarin, Hebrew, and others use a completely different character set than the letters A-Z from the Latin alphabet. With more domains being registered outside of North America, Internationalized Domain Names, also known as IDNs, help make the Internet more internationally accessible. IDNs enable people to use domain names in other languages. They are formed using characters from different scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, or Hebrew. If you’ve ever seen a domain made up of a string of numbers and letters starting with “xn--”, this was an IDN.
How are IDNs formed?
These domains are encoded by the Unicode standard. For example, if an individual wanted to register the Arabic word for “dessert” as a .com domain, they would need to take that word (الحلوى) and then convert it. In this case, after being converted, الحلوى.com would look like xn--mgbm2ebug.com. When you register one, you already automatically register the other. This means that registering الحلوى.com would automatically register xn--mgbm2ebug.com.
With a majority of the world’s Internet users being non-English speakers, the number of “domains in disguise” will likely grow, making internationalized domains an opportunity worth considering.
Original image source.
Benefits of Internationalized Domain Names
For businesses looking to expand their reach worldwide, registering an international domain may help you connect better with non-English speakers.
Also, according to ICANN, there are expected to be 5B Internet users worldwide in 2020. Currently, the top 3 countries by number of Internet users are China (748.4M estimated users), India (455.3M estimated users), and the United States (245.4M estimated users), which further emphasizes the impact of an IDN for international businesses.
IDNs in the Aftermarket
While there have been some reported IDN sales, the market is not as active or sizeable as .com’s or other TLDs at this time.
If you’re interested in learning more, NamePros and IDN Forums are a great place to start delving in deeper.
IDNs can be registered at a number of registrars, if you’re considering getting one.
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