What is an ID?
TechnologyWhen you have an IDN, an international domain name, you open your site to the world. The Internet had been used by the public for a few years before Martin Durst proposed, in 1996, that domain names have non-ASCII characters used in IDNs.
Domain names that use ASCII characters contain the letters AZ, the numbers 0 through 9, and a hyphen where applicable. Languages other than English use different alphabets and notations such as diacritics (glyphs), characters that the standard keyboard does not have. Similarly, non-Latin scripts such as Arabic cannot be expressed in ASCII, which works with a standard keyboard. Until IDNs were implemented, non-English speakers had no choice but to learn to navigate the Internet in a foreign language or not learn to navigate the Internet.
Now you can register a domain in more than 300 native languages. You can have a domain name in English, such as [www] dowry [goodcrackers] dowry [com, and the same name in Hindi. Although you need to register each domain separately you still have ownership of both as long as you keep up with renewals.
IDNs let people navigate the internet and find what they want in their native language. Since IDNs came into world-wide use they have been good for businesses who want a global footprint. Both English and non-English merchants can reach more people, increase their profit margins and build their businesses by using IDNs.
Let’s say you have an internet store that you use to sell recipe books and it’s doing fairly well. However, your customers are confined to most of North America and some parts of Europe. You’ve lined up a publisher for printing the books in other languages and assembled e-Books in French, Chinese and other languages. But how do you reach those non-English speakers with your product?
First you’ll find a registrar and see if the IDN you want is available. You have translated [www] dowry [goodcrackers] dowry [com] into multiple languages and even tweaked the name a bit to appeal to specific localities, including variations on traditional local recipes. The registrar will tell you if a name is available, and if not, you can roll back or change the name to a similar one. When you register your IDN, it will be added to that registrar’s database.
Now you can start using your IDN for blogs, your business, a personal website, email, and other Internet activities. Spice up your site with content aimed at your target audience to keep them engaged and coming back to your site regularly. Your IDN can be a commercial site with a blog or a personal site with links to a commercial site. Either way you do it, having an IDN will significantly increase your business volume and traffic.
An IDN is also a great tool for gaining goodwill. Someone may have heard of your product, but couldn’t navigate your site well enough to order it. By offering your merchandise or blog in their native language or at least an IDN, they can easily locate what you’ve told them is important to you. An IDN is the perfect way to expand your global presence.