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I'd like to clear up some things about IDN Domains which some are talking about the commercial success of IDN Domains instead of informing the NP community about exactly why IDN Domains are needed.
IDN Domains are greatly needed for countries that's language is not based on the latin language. Technology issues is what held IDN Domains back but IE which was the biggest factor in the countries not adapting IDN Domains is going to resolve the issues with the release of IE7
I'll try to answer some IDN related questions here as posted but I will try to post info on common misconceptions as I see. I'm an American SEO consultant, & web site developer fluent reading & writing in Japanese. (My reading is better than my writing but you get the point).
I'll talk about IDN Domains for the average Japanese person. I have been doing research on the internet use of Japanese since September of last year.
Except for the US most other countries was late getting on the internet. Most simple dot coms are already registered. Japan made the dot jp extension to accomodate for this but truthfully if you are Japanese there's a problem that others can't see that arises.
It might sound really hard to believe but this is said with research from native Japanese. Japanese people living in Japan can not remember ASCII domain names. This is a fact. IDN Domains allows them to type the domain in native Japanese.
Also there is the search engine (SEO) value. Any ASCII domain has about as much potential to rank for Japanese keywords because the actual native keyword is not in the domain. With IDN Domains the actual keyword (native) is there.
On Japanese blogs Japanese SEOs are noticing that the search engine algorithms are changing to boost Japanese IDNs in the rankings. Google Japan & Yahoo Japan also made IDN Domains show up properly in search results.
Japanese don't do type ins currently because the URLs are in ASCII form. They know they can't spell a lot of them correctly. A Japanese word spelled in English can be spelled multiple ways. Even the word Tokyo is actually Toukyou in Japanese if I spelled it the way I world write it. For a Japanese to go to a web site. This is the process.
They go to their bookmark of Google Japan or Yahoo! Japan. & type in the web site's name in Japanese. This exact pattern I have seen over & over every single day watching that no matter what URL I give them or site they want to go to, Japanese do it this way only because they can not remember how to spell every URL.
The advertisements in Tokyo for IDN Domains is usually stating "Finally easy to remember Domain names".
For a company this is a big issue. For users this is a big issue.
There's more & I know many will ask questions like:
But they have to switch over the encode on they keyboard.
Japanese can switch over the encode with one single button, & truthfully I switch the encode but found out they actually don't even have to. They can type in the extension the same as switching to the right Chinese characters.
I keep hearing about an IDN keyboard. Japanese use a normal keyboard just like in English. Mentally they use the English letters to type in their language but Japanese NEVER EVER PHYSICALLY SEE their own language in Roman letters.
I promote IDNs to anyone who is interested in learning about them. Many domainers have roots in other countries or see that IDN Domains is a parallel of domaining in English in multiple languages.
Will this be an instant winfall?
By no means no. I fully expected when I started registering domains that it should be at least 1 or 2 years after IE7 is released before IDN Domains are in full use. The site I created about IDN Domains gave people a chance to look over the reality of them & see if they would like to be a part of it at it's infancy. I posted on my site that NP since it has a wide range of young people has the most potential for users to "get" the concept of IDN Domains.
Sedo, NameDrive, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo & other companies see the value in them too (as far as user value).
Most info about the progress of IDN Domains will not be presented in English because most will just assume that domains in Romain letters is the standard & everyone is used to it. They might be "used" to it but can't fully function with them like a person from a country that uses Romain letters. This is a fact. Asians that are Asian American, & Asians not able to function in English are two seperate entities.
Any questions or comments just post them I'll try to answer some as I have time. I only am limited in my knowledge about the Chinese firewall thing...
IDN Domains are greatly needed for countries that's language is not based on the latin language. Technology issues is what held IDN Domains back but IE which was the biggest factor in the countries not adapting IDN Domains is going to resolve the issues with the release of IE7
I'll try to answer some IDN related questions here as posted but I will try to post info on common misconceptions as I see. I'm an American SEO consultant, & web site developer fluent reading & writing in Japanese. (My reading is better than my writing but you get the point).
I'll talk about IDN Domains for the average Japanese person. I have been doing research on the internet use of Japanese since September of last year.
Except for the US most other countries was late getting on the internet. Most simple dot coms are already registered. Japan made the dot jp extension to accomodate for this but truthfully if you are Japanese there's a problem that others can't see that arises.
It might sound really hard to believe but this is said with research from native Japanese. Japanese people living in Japan can not remember ASCII domain names. This is a fact. IDN Domains allows them to type the domain in native Japanese.
Also there is the search engine (SEO) value. Any ASCII domain has about as much potential to rank for Japanese keywords because the actual native keyword is not in the domain. With IDN Domains the actual keyword (native) is there.
On Japanese blogs Japanese SEOs are noticing that the search engine algorithms are changing to boost Japanese IDNs in the rankings. Google Japan & Yahoo Japan also made IDN Domains show up properly in search results.
Japanese don't do type ins currently because the URLs are in ASCII form. They know they can't spell a lot of them correctly. A Japanese word spelled in English can be spelled multiple ways. Even the word Tokyo is actually Toukyou in Japanese if I spelled it the way I world write it. For a Japanese to go to a web site. This is the process.
They go to their bookmark of Google Japan or Yahoo! Japan. & type in the web site's name in Japanese. This exact pattern I have seen over & over every single day watching that no matter what URL I give them or site they want to go to, Japanese do it this way only because they can not remember how to spell every URL.
The advertisements in Tokyo for IDN Domains is usually stating "Finally easy to remember Domain names".
For a company this is a big issue. For users this is a big issue.
There's more & I know many will ask questions like:
But they have to switch over the encode on they keyboard.
Japanese can switch over the encode with one single button, & truthfully I switch the encode but found out they actually don't even have to. They can type in the extension the same as switching to the right Chinese characters.
I keep hearing about an IDN keyboard. Japanese use a normal keyboard just like in English. Mentally they use the English letters to type in their language but Japanese NEVER EVER PHYSICALLY SEE their own language in Roman letters.
I promote IDNs to anyone who is interested in learning about them. Many domainers have roots in other countries or see that IDN Domains is a parallel of domaining in English in multiple languages.
Will this be an instant winfall?
By no means no. I fully expected when I started registering domains that it should be at least 1 or 2 years after IE7 is released before IDN Domains are in full use. The site I created about IDN Domains gave people a chance to look over the reality of them & see if they would like to be a part of it at it's infancy. I posted on my site that NP since it has a wide range of young people has the most potential for users to "get" the concept of IDN Domains.
Sedo, NameDrive, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo & other companies see the value in them too (as far as user value).
Most info about the progress of IDN Domains will not be presented in English because most will just assume that domains in Romain letters is the standard & everyone is used to it. They might be "used" to it but can't fully function with them like a person from a country that uses Romain letters. This is a fact. Asians that are Asian American, & Asians not able to function in English are two seperate entities.
Any questions or comments just post them I'll try to answer some as I have time. I only am limited in my knowledge about the Chinese firewall thing...
