Do you like IDNs or ccTLDs better?

[Hurley4540]

I myself prefer ccTLDs way better....probably because English is my first language and I see no point or worth in IDNs...although there has been some really nice IDN sales I just dont get the point of these domains.....

Thoughts?

 

[Rubber Duck]

Well if they can input all that Chinese content from a Qwerty Keyboard, I really don't think they are going to have a problem typing ".com" from memory, do you?

 

[.tv]

Well if they can input all that Chinese content from a Qwerty Keyboard, I really don't think they are going to have a problem typing ".com" from memory, do you?

Nice argument.

To enter an extension there are shortcuts available, and they do not even want to type them:

To navigate to yahoo.com, they may simply type yahoo and "ctrl+enter" keys.

To navigate to csdn.net, they may simply type csdn and "shift+enter" keys.

To navigate to wikipedia.org, they may simply type wikipedia and "ctrl+shift+enter" keys.

These shortcuts are not only available for Chinese/Japanese but these shortcuts are common for everyone, and of course typing an extension requires no exceptional knowledge in English.

My question is, how do they type a domain name which contains 2 or 3 english words, say for example adultfriendfinder dot com (or) EastMoney dot com?

Do you really think websites like adultfriendfinder dot com (or) EastMoney dot com receives traffic *ONLY* from bookmarks and search results and NOT from direct type-ins?

As per Alexa rankings, EastMoney is the 21st most visited Chinese website.

Typing an extension requires almost no knowledge or memorizing, but what about typing a domain name which contains 2 or 3 English words? How is it possible to memorize those names (say for example 20 English domain names that they frequently visit) if they have no English knowledge?

Do they memorize all those names? If that is the case, definitely they have the ability to understand and type English words, which again implies they know at least a little bit English, IMO.

 

[Hurley4540]

I was gunna rep you for that post, but i have to spread more rep :O

 

[Rubber Duck]

Nice argument.

To enter an extension there are shortcuts available, and they do not even want to type them:

To navigate to yahoo.com, they may simply type yahoo and "ctrl+enter" keys.

To navigate to csdn.net, they may simply type csdn and "shift+enter" keys.

To navigate to wikipedia.org, they may simply type wikipedia and "ctrl+shift+enter" keys.

These shortcuts are not only available for Chinese/Japanese but these shortcuts are common for everyone, and of course typing an extension requires no exceptional knowledge in English.

My question is, how do they type a domain name which contains 2 or 3 english words, say for example adultfriendfinder dot com (or) EastMoney dot com?

Do you really think websites like adultfriendfinder dot com (or) EastMoney dot com receives traffic *ONLY* from bookmarks and search results and NOT from direct type-ins?

As per Alexa rankings, EastMoney is the 21st most visited Chinese website.

Typing an extension requires almost no knowledge or memorizing, but what about typing a domain name which contains 2 or 3 English words? How is it possible to memorize those names (say for example 20 English domain names that they frequently visit) if they have no English knowledge?

Do they memorize all those names? If that is the case, definitely they have the ability to understand and type English words, which again implies they know at least a little bit English, IMO.

Most of the navigation in the Far East is known to be Search and Bookmarking.

The fact that people know a little bit of English is irrelevant. How many Bollywood Films are produced in English for the local market?

 

[.tv]

Most of the navigation in the Far East is known to be Search and Bookmarking.

The fact that people know a little bit of English is irrelevant.

It is relevant to the context being discussed here. I ask you to read from the first post, and try to answer my questions.

How many Bollywood Films are produced in English for the local market?

Do you think it is relevant to the context being discussed here? :lol:

Giving irrelevant information is not the answer. We are discussing about IDN names, and the need of them, not about the junks you mentioned here.

 

[Rubber Duck]

It is relevant to the context being discussed here. I ask you to read from the first post, and try to answer my questions.



Do you think it is relevant to the context being discussed here? :lol:

Giving irrelevant information is not the answer. We are discussing about IDN names, and the need of them, not about the junks you mentioned here.

Look I speak and can read and write French. How often do I type it into Google. Just about never. It is not what about which languages they can cope with at a struggle, it is about which languages are convenient and intuitive.

Bollywood is a good example. Most Indian are proportedly good English speakers. I dispute that, but what nobody can dispute is that it is not generally the language of choice. And it the language and script of choice that is the issue hear. You are not going to be there standing over them like a Victorian School Master when they are typing into the address bar.

 

[.tv]

Look I speak and can read and write French. How often do I type it into Google. Just about never. It is not what about which languages they can cope with at a struggle, it is about which languages are convenient and intuitive.

Yes, I'm also saying that people use English for domain names (whether they are Chinese/Japanese/Indians or others), which is more convenient than using any other language scripts in domain names even though they have little knowledge about English. Multi-Billion dollar companies have adopted to offer their services ONLY through ASCII domains. Why they are not using IDNs if their customer base know little or no knowledge about English? ASCII names have the real value, where as IDNs have very little value, and most of the prime IDNs are in the hands of speculators and resellers. IDNs will never capture the market of ASCII names, IMO.

 

[rhys]

This thread began with earnest intentions from a newbie and unfortunately it goes on and on in circles based on a couple of untrue hypotheses. Hopefully I can help some of you though some are still unlikely to believe anything they don't like.

Mistake 1. If you can type on a querty keyboard, you know some English. Sorry but this is WAY wrong. It takes no knowledge of English to use a querty keyboard. For example, Querty is the dominant keyboard in Japan yet most Japanese could not speak English to save their life. True, they study it for years and years in school but the result of this is a few hackneyed expressions and quite a bit of isolated vocabulary none of which they can spell particularly well. Being half-Japanese and born with considerable time spent in Japan allows me the authority to say this. So what, you ask, do Japanese do with the QUERTY keyboard? Well, for starters, they use it to put together syllables that allow them to type in Japanese.

Mistake 2. ASCII.cctld mostly gets traffic because people are typing in. For some countries, in some languages this is very true. In other countries not true at all. Some seem incredulous to hear that type-in is practically non-existant in Japan. Well this is pretty much true. Why? Simple, because to my point #1 above MOST JAPANESE CANNOT TYPE IN ENGLISH. Using a QUERTY keyboard to type Japanese does not magically endow people with a knowledge of English spelling. Which if you haven't noticed is some pretty f*cked up sh*t. Some educated Japanese who lived abroad can type in "yahoo" "amazon" and so forth but the vast majority, say close to 95% seem to rely on bookmarks and search engine type-ins to find the websites they want to go to. Typical internet adventure begins by opening browser which is pre-set on the yahoo homepage. Type into search bar "amazon" (in Japanese not English of course) and amazon.co.jp is the first link. Click on the link. This is how it is done. Accept it.

Mistake 3. Because Amazon and Yahoo and other major sites don't rely primarily on IDN, IDN must not be very valuable. To be honest I puzzled over this myself some time ago. But blogging through Japanese SEO sites I found the answer. Basically less than 20% of browsers in Japan today are IDN capable. Therefore if a company sets their website to IDN as the primary, most users will see the punycode on the URL line and it will look like garbage at best, phishing site at worst. Therefore companies are not inclined to use IDNs yet as primary sites. True that many companies currently do use IDN sites to forward to their ASCII site. However, this is viewed as a transitional step. Once IE7 and other IDN capable browsers represent the majority of browsers in Japan, it is expected that companies will begin using their IDN sites (which most companies seem to own already) because of their many natural SEO advantages and may even begin using the IDN as their base domain. To do so currently would scare some customers away. So I don't think it says much about IDN value other than, time is on the side of IDNs. Of course, Nissan and others have already started running TV campaigns using IDN and the Japan Post Office uses IDN so I guess it is wrong to say that this never happens today. It just isn't widespread yet. Read "The Tipping Point" if you care to learn more about the phenomenon.

 

[.tv]

Thank you rhys for the informative post.

Rep added.

 

[Rubber Duck]

My questions are NOT about content... I'm asking about IDNs, but you are telling about content. Nice.

The bottom line is whatever the fools that most revere as Gurus tell you, the script of search keywords correlate almost 100% with content of the websites targeted by the searcher. In other words if you are Chinese, and want Chinese content you type Chinese keywords. If you are Azeri and you want Azeri content you type Azeri keywords. It is a rational extrapolation that if you generally type search keywords in a script, you will then tend to type in URLs in the same script. Not yet conclusively proven, but pretty much a no-brainer. Unfortunately, Rick and Sahar and company cannot get their heads around this. The implications of that to me are obvious.

Yes, I'm also saying that people use English for domain names (whether they are Chinese/Japanese/Indians or others), which is more convenient than using any other language scripts in domain names even though they have little knowledge about English. Multi-Billion dollar companies have adopted to offer their services ONLY through ASCII domains. Why they are not using IDNs if their customer base know little or no knowledge about English? ASCII names have the real value, where as IDNs have very little value, and most of the prime IDNs are in the hands of speculators and resellers. IDNs will never capture the market of ASCII names, IMO.

This is nonsense and within months it will be seen to be nonsense. Why would the Russian President be jumping up and down about IDN, if there was not a cat in hells chance that they intended to use them. Why has the Chinese Government been pressing ICANN so hard on their implementation, to the point where they are using the ISPs to hack around the DNS. If you want to allocate blame or find reasons then it is due to Microsofts pathetic attempts at bringing their browser into the 21st Century.

 

[.tv]

This is nonsense and within months it will be seen to be nonsense.

Look, everyone has different views.

Tell me "Nonsense" when the so called IDNs capture the primary market in sales as well as in usability. :hehe:

I'm not IDN hater, of course I'm holding a dozen of IDNs, but I'll never accept that IDN names are better than ASCII.

 

[phantom4444]

Slighty off topic but do you think Babelfish/equiv. is having an impact on the search habits of different people around the world?
I know if I need to search for something in a foreign country I get a quick translation and improves results 100%.....

Would love to know opinions on this

ak

 

[james0306]

RB, .tv,

Thanks for sharing both your good thoughts to us.
Please allow me to provide some ideas. This is my personal thought which may not represent the majority of Chinese, but it should be slightly helpful based on my 30+ Chinese speaking experience.

1. The case of IDN actually varies. ASC Names like "sport, sex, money" will still be better than IDN, since those words are used frequently on TV or Ads on the street. However, for some words like "medical" or "fitness", I doubt currently if 10% of Chinese can spell it right, not mention to type it on the URL.

2. I am firm that Chinese can type in .COM easily without using ctrl/shift key. We hear the term ".com" mentioned almost everyday on TV or radio.
BTW, most Chinese use the word "TV" as well, since the biggest TV channel at China, called themselves "CCTV" and pronouces it on every TV show.

3. IDN.IDN may not be convenient as people expected for Chinese. Especially, with Vista and Google's typing tool, Chinese can now type IDN.com at once without switching English/Chinese format.

Here is a sample for how Chinese enter the URL:

Traget URL (actually letters entered)
健身.com （jianshen.com） => 健身.公司 （jianshen.gongsi）
健身.cn （jianshen.cn） => 健身.中国 （jianshen.zhonguo）

As you can see that there are more letters needed for IDN.IDN while .com and .cn is well recognized at China. So I think IDN.com and IDN.IDN will share the market, instead of replacing the other.


It's welcome if any one else can share the usage for other languages.
:red:

 

[Phio]

Follow the money. English speaking countries have been on quite a downturn as of late. Arabic, German, Chinese, and Russian etc have been on the upturn.

Take a look at the trade balance in the world, and where the money is going, and who has the money now. (see economist dot com for more details)

Now factor in the fact that there are a bazillion Confusing ascii names out there.

we are talking really confusing and non-sensical domains.....and think about what the rest of the world has been using and seeing. Names like hzzz.com
or vn123.net. Ascii has been force fed to all non-english speaking peoples, and they have had no choice.

Try to look at this from non-english speaking peoples perspective...

how would you like to see domains like:

撲克牌遊戲.net
sousvêtements.net
גינה.net
சிங்கப்பூர.com
ウェイトリフティング.net
기술자.com
интернетодежда.com
โฉมงาม.com
cựcxinh.com
hångla.com
içerik.com
inscríbete.com
nasılsın.com
übungsbuch.com

These words make no sense to English speakers...but natives will recognize them in a millisecond.

 

[Bramiozo]

Look, everyone has different views.

Tell me "Nonsense" when the so called IDNs capture the primary market in sales as well as in usability. :hehe:

I'm not IDN hater, of course I'm holding a dozen of IDNs, but I'll never accept that IDN names are better than ASCII.

In all fairness, he is giving arguments based on a solid rationale, why don't you respond in a manner that at least gives the impression you are putting in an effort.
You are very kind to give Rhys credit for his post but in doing so you thrash your own argument about your magical threshold of number of word combo's you can memorize before you actually learn a language.
It defies common sense and (and common fact) but you manage to claim (although much more experienced IDN'ers claim otherwise) that japanese/chinese people actually learn to appreciate english from necessarily typing ascii combo's. What's your point anyway, the discussion is about whether they would prefer one over the other linguistically and pragmatically. The only reasonable contra-argument lies in the area of pragmatism.

Why only ascii domains are in the top-100 lists from Alexa, right...you think that's a reasonable yardstick ? Top-100 domains receive millions of uniques a month, you don't build up traffic like that when the public is mostly unaware they can even type in the domain. Besides it would normally take years to reach that kind of traffic IF you advertise so the full development should have taken place years ago when it would have been impossible to attract investors. One example of moderate success is เกมส์.com (games.com in thai), which was later pointed to thaigamez.com.
See http://www.IDNF/forums/12760-world-record.html?highlight=thai

If you stand by your remarks you wouldn't go near IDN's in general, yet you claim to own them in an extension that will likely be tertiary in value compared to .com/.ctld, what's up with that ?

You said this 11 days ago

I am a big believer of IDN .TV names, and managed to sell a few adult names in Japanese market. IDNs will be the big deal in upcoming years IMO.

http://www.namepros.com/idn-discussion/478214-idn-tv-speculation.html

Maybe you are downplaying idn.ascii to up your idn.cn (idn.idn), maybe you like to invest in something after which you start to downplay the value to satisfy some sadistic tendencies, I don't know but I do know that you can't dismiss the well put arguments that some have bothered to write here with a reaction like

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck
This is nonsense and within months it will be seen to be nonsense.



Look, everyone has different views.

Tell me "Nonsense" when the so called IDNs capture the primary market in sales as well as in usability.

I'm not IDN hater, of course I'm holding a dozen of IDNs, but I'll never accept that IDN names are better than ASCII.

 

[mulligan]

Word.

In all fairness, he is giving arguments based on a solid rationale, why don't you respond in a manner that at least gives the impression you are putting in an effort.
You are very kind to give Rhys credit for his post but in doing so you thrash your own argument about your magical threshold of number of word combo's you can memorize before you actually learn a language.
It defies common sense and (and common fact) but you manage to claim (although much more experienced IDN'ers claim otherwise) that japanese/chinese people actually learn to appreciate english from necessarily typing ascii combo's. What's your point anyway, the discussion is about whether they would prefer one over the other linguistically and pragmatically. The only reasonable contra-argument lies in the area of pragmatism.

Why only ascii domains are in the top-100 lists from Alexa, right...you think that's a reasonable yardstick ? Top-100 domains receive millions of uniques a month, you don't build up traffic like that when the public is mostly unaware they can even type in the domain. Besides it would normally take years to reach that kind of traffic IF you advertise so the full development should have taken place years ago when it would have been impossible to attract investors. One example of moderate success is เกมส์.com (games.com in thai), which was later pointed to thaigamez.com.
See http://www.IDNF/forums/12760-world-record.html?highlight=thai

If you stand by your remarks you wouldn't go near IDN's in general, yet you claim to own them in an extension that will likely be tertiary in value compared to .com/.ctld, what's up with that ?

You said this 11 days ago

http://www.namepros.com/idn-discussion/478214-idn-tv-speculation.html

Maybe you are downplaying idn.ascii to up your idn.cn (idn.idn), maybe you like to invest in something after which you start to downplay the value to satisfy some sadistic tendencies, I don't know but I do know that you can't dismiss the well put arguments that some have bothered to write here with a reaction like

 

[james0306]

I'm not IDN hater, of course I'm holding a dozen of IDNs, but I'll never accept that IDN names are better than ASCII.

.tv,

I have to disagree with you for this. Remember we had a discussion in another thread about the SEO and Advertise benefits come with IDN ? Also, don't forget that there are many foreign words can not be translated into English.

For example, the most famous novel in China, ”三国演义“. I have never meet any Chinese who don't know the name. However, I doubt that there is more than 0.01% chinese will type or search it using its Englisth term "Story of Three Kingdoms".

This could happen in any language other then English.
So I am firm that, not all, but at least a good amout of IDNs will be much better than in ASC format.

 

[.tv]

You are very kind to give Rhys credit for his post but in doing so you thrash your own argument about your magical threshold of number of word combo's you can memorize before you actually learn a language.

Yes, previously I've asked some questions and Rhys has explained everything clearly, and I gave him a rep.

Rhys has provided the information I wanted in a clear way, and the discussion was almost over. Again RB has made some comments for which I've answered in the same manner as of his comments.

You said this 11 days ago

http://www.namepros.com/idn-discussion/478214-idn-tv-speculation.html

Maybe you are downplaying idn.ascii to up your idn.cn (idn.idn), maybe you like to invest in something after which you start to downplay the value to satisfy some sadistic tendencies, I don't know but I do know that you can't dismiss the well put arguments that some have bothered to write here with a reaction like

Well,
I'm not downplaying IDN.ASCII, since I do own several IDN.ASCII names including a few IDN.CN which are also IDN.ASCII names.

Thank you for monitoring each and every post I have made in the past. In that thread, I've posted in the seller's POV, which are not contrary to my statements posted here.

Still I am saying that IDN.ASCII names have huge potential in the reseller POV, as I've already sold a few names in the reseller market. This does not implies that the IDN.ASCII names have huge potential for end users, because there are already cctlds apart from tlds like .com/.net/.org with huge numbers of ASCII.cctld registrations going on everyday in every country.

My entire POV is purely based on what I am seeing in practical.

As per the current Internet trends, I have not seen any IDN.ASCII names which are getting uniques like ASCII names, but as per your explanation I agree that it would take some time.

I have not seen any historic sales in the xxx,xxx range for IDN.ASCII names.

I am still thinking that IDNs have SEO, and other ranking issues.

Do you really think IDN.ASCII names have huge potential than ASCII.ASCII names, if a capital city.com in native IDN sells for only $16,000?

There are more than 300 million Russians using the Russian language in their daily life. Moscow is the capital of Russia.

The IDN Москва.com was sold for a mere $16,000. If IDN.ASCII names have real potential, Geo names like Москва.com should have gone for $x,xxx,xxx or at least $xxx,xxx.

Many prime IDN names are in the hands of speculators and resellers.

I am still saying that IDNs are far behind the ASCII names.

Thanks for your comments on my posts. I think the discussion is turning to be an individual attack, and many of you describe me as a IDN hater. Thanks for that, and if you wish, keep on with your comments and remarks.

 

[Billidn]

Do you really think IDN.ASCII names have huge potential than ASCII.ASCII names, if a capital city.com in native IDN sells for only $16,000?
There are more than 300 million Russians using the Russian language in their daily life. Moscow is the capital of Russia. The IDN Москва.com was sold for a mere $16,000. If IDN.ASCII names have real potential, Geo names like Москва.com should have gone for $x,xxx,xxx or at least $xxx,xxx.
Many prime IDN names are in the hands of speculators and resellers.

I am still saying that IDNs are far behind the ASCII names.
)

IMO you kind of need to think of IDNs in terms of development versus ASCII as being in their development level equivalent to ascii in the year "2001". The neat thing here is that we have all that knowledge of ASCII to pretty much guide us on what the likely outcome will be in the end.

In regards to Москва.com, that was a giveaway at $16k even at this stage of the game. That will most likely fetch mid xxx,xxx or more in the next 5 years, and and no doubt x,xxx,xxx sometime beyond that. No doubt the most excitement and action is in Russian IDNs right now both for traffic and lots of press and government push for (.rf) as idn.idn later this year, or early 2009.

IDNs are still a bit of a long term play, so invest in them with the idea to hold them for a while. There are still some good names out there at reg fee, and the secondary market gets a decent amount of good names up for sale as well. Worth grabbing a dozen good generic names or so and see what happens.

 

[.tv]

That will most likely fetch mid xxx,xxx or more in the next 5 years, and and no doubt x,xxx,xxx sometime beyond that. No doubt the most excitement and action is in Russian IDNs right now both for traffic and lots of press and government push for (.rf) as idn.idn later this year, or early 2009.

Nice, the same rule applies to ASCII also. Just imagine the value of moscow.com (ASCII) in the next 5 years, or beyond that. Definitely the price will grow exponentially, which is again going to be far higher than the price tag of IDNs.

 

[Billidn]

Nice, the same rule applies to ASCII also. Just imagine the value of moscow.com (ASCII) in the next 5 years, or beyond that. Definitely the price will grow exponentially, which is again going to be far higher than the price tag of IDNs.

Moscow.com and Москва.com will go for different audiences. IDNs will typically be set up to take users to foreign language sites.

I imagine Moscow.com is set up for tourists (check out the new Germany.com) which is perfect use for ASCII geo names. I imagine that Москва.com will be used more for the locals and Russian speaking visitors to the city with lots of ads for nightlife, food, dining, entertainment, hotels, real estate, etc.

Will Москва.com ever be worth more than Moscow.com, who knows...both should make the owners plenty of money and I doubt either will sell cheaply from this stage of the game on.

 

[Billidn]

Nice, the same rule applies to ASCII also. Just imagine the value of moscow.com (ASCII) in the next 5 years, or beyond that. Definitely the price will grow exponentially, which is again going to be far higher than the price tag of IDNs.

How about some google trends for (English) Moscow vs. (Russian) Москва. The trend seems to show over the last year and all the publicity for IDNS, which started in 4th quarter 2007, that Russians are switching to searching a good bit in their own native language.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Moscow,+Москва&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Of course...the exception seems to be those living in Moscow, Idaho.

 

[.tv]

How about some google trends for (English) Moscow vs. (Russian) Москва. The trend seems to show over the last year and all the publicity for IDNS, which started in 4th quarter 2007, that Russians are switching to searching a good bit in their own native language.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=Moscow,+Москва&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Of course...the exception seems to be those living in Moscow, Idaho.

Well, many of you falsely relating the search trends with the requirement of native keywords in domain names. Search trends are not directly related to domain names.

Search engines crawl and index websites based on content, and meta keywords. Even an ASCII domain name with content in native language gets indexed by Search Engines in the first page.

People search for particular keywords in their native language, and search engines fetch the matching web pages for those keywords whether the matching pages are from IDNs or ASCII domains.

Simple example:

Searching for "中国" yields nearly 1,750,000,000 search results and the very first result is GOV.CN which is not IDN.

 

[Billidn]

Well, many of you falsely relating the search trends with the requirement of native keywords in domain names. Search trends are not directly related to domain names.

Search engines crawl and index websites based on content, and meta keywords. Even an ASCII domain name with content in native language gets indexed by Search Engines in the first page.

People search for particular keywords in their native language, and search engines fetch the matching web pages for those keywords whether the matching pages are from IDNs or ASCII domains..

Just making a simple point that once IDNs were hyped in the press in Russian language countries, people starting typing words into their browsers. The few dozen various forum members that have substantial Russian IDN.com names saw the traffic begin to take off in the 4th quarter of last year, and then continue a slow trend upwards from there.

The google trends graph just points out the same uptick with the Russian word for Moscow, and the time correlation to the breaking news from ICANN, followed by the Russian government push to get thier own idn.idn extension.

 

[Hurley4540]

Good posts here guys...keep it up !!