IDN On Steroids

IDN on Steroids
© 2008 ProfitswithChris.com
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© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

IDN on Steroids
Disclaimer
This publication is purely for general informational purposes. I have made best
efforts to prepare this publication but I take no responsibility or liability for your
actions that you take or for any consequences after reading this publication.
Furthermore, I make no warranties or representations concerning the accuracy
or completeness of this publication. By reading this publication you understand
that you are responsible for your own actions. Under no circumstances shall I be
held liable for any losses or damages you incur after reading this publication. Use
of this publication is at your own risk.
This publication is subject to international copyright law and cannot be copied or

reproduced in any way whatsoever except that specified below. It also cannot
be sold for money.
However, it can be freely given away. So you can email this document to others
and you can host the file on your own site and make it available for download.
You can even use for your own mailing list and require people to subscribe
before they can get this publication. You can also offer this publication for free
download on your paid or free membership sites. You can also offer this
publication as a free bonus accompanying a paid product.
Just remember, you cannot sell this publication on it's own for any sum of
money. Also, you cannot edit or rebrand this publication – this publication must
remain totally unmodified.
I do not make any guarantees or claims for your performance or results.
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Contents
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................5
WHAT ARE IDNS?........................................................................................................................................6

WHAT ARE IDNS AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?..................................................................................................6
IDN.TLD......................................................................................................................................................7
CURRENT IDN TRENDS.............................................................................................................................9
MAJOR COUNTRIES WHERE CONSUMERS ARE ADOPTING IDNS...........................................................................10
WHY ARE IDNS GOOD FOR INTERNET MARKETERS?........................................................................................10
SO WHY AREN’T THE MAINSTREAM DOMAIN COMMUNITY GOING NUTS FOR IDNS?...........................................11
IDN TESTING PHASE AND EVOLUTIONS WITH ICANN....................................................................................12
HOW YOU CAN EARN MONEY WITH IDNS.......................................................................................15
CAPITAL GAINS.............................................................................................................................................15
PARKING.......................................................................................................................................................16
SO HOW DO IDNS WORK IN PRACTICE?...........................................................................................20
TECHNICALITIES.............................................................................................................................................20
TYPES OF IDN.............................................................................................................................................26
COUNTRIES....................................................................................................................................................26
SYMBOL IDNS..............................................................................................................................................31
STRANGE TLDS............................................................................................................................................31
STRATEGIES FOR FINDING IDNS........................................................................................................32
APPRAISAL....................................................................................................................................................32
NEW REGISTRATIONS......................................................................................................................................34
SECONDARY MARKET.....................................................................................................................................36
OVERALL INVESTMENT STRATEGIES..............................................................................................38
DIVERSIFICATION............................................................................................................................................38
COVER YOUR REG FEES.................................................................................................................................38
A GOOD BEGINNER’S STRATEGY.....................................................................................................................39
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IDN MARKET.......................................................................40
THE NAYSAYERS AND DOOMMONGERS..............................................................................................................40
THE ACTIVE IDN COMMUNITY.......................................................................................................................40
DOMAIN TASTING...........................................................................................................................................40
TRADEMARKS................................................................................................................................................41
DEVELOPING IDN SITES.........................................................................................................................42
HOSTING WITH IDNS....................................................................................................................................42
SELLING IDNS............................................................................................................................................43
TOOLS AND RESOURCES.......................................................................................................................45
WHAT FUTURE CAN WE SEE FOR IDNS?..........................................................................................47
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WHY FEBRUARY 12 IS AN IMPORTANT DATE .....................................................................................................47

IDN.IDN....................................................................................................................................................47
STAY ABREAST OF LANDRUSHES......................................................................................................................48
FINAL THOUGHTS....................................................................................................................................49
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Introduction
Hi and congratulations on downloading this guide and opening your mind to the
world of IDNs. I know that you will find great value in this guide.
When it comes to IDNs, I missed the first boat (actually I grabbed a few morcels
that are now worth a few thousand dollars at today’s market price), but the
second, third and fourth boats are still moored in the harbour and you can still
take advantage of that.
This book is about getting you up to speed on a.s.a.p. on IDN and their huge
potential for you - whether you want to play the speculation game or even use
for internet marketing purposes.
As well as this book, I have also created a 50 minute video that shows me
finding IDNs, as well as a spreadsheet that accompanies the video. You can
download both from either of these 2 sites (use the other if one does not work
for you): Main Download Link, Alternative Download Link.
Oh, one other thing - think of this guide as just that - a "guide" or "primer" to
the world of IDN. I don't profess to be the leading expert on IDNs but I have no
doubt that this guide will get you up and running very quickly. Like with most
things in life, "knowledge is power", and I encourage you to learn more and
more. I have included a list near the end of many additional resources that you
should check out.
I really hope you enjoy reading this guide and any comments, feedback or
questions that you have - please hit me up at:
Thanks
Chris Smith
ProfitswithChris.com
PS This book will no doubt be updated in future and you can always grab the
latest version here: “IDN On Steroids Latest Version”.
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What are IDNs?
What Are IDNs And Why Should I Care?
Let’s start with the basics - what are IDNs anyway?
I'm sure you know what a domain name is (by the way, to save typing, I'm just
going to call them "domains" from now on).
IDN stands for “Internationalized Domain Name”. As you can tell from this
phrase, they are intended to provide a superior quality of domain for the entire
world to use.
Now, think about domains and the way they work at the moment - they're all in
English!
Picture yourself as a person living in the country of China (you can easily replace
China with any other country). Like your fellow countrymen, you enjoy using the
internet for work and pleasure.
You have several favourite sites and enjoy reading about news, sports and your
other hobbies. Of course, all the sites that you read are displayed in Chinese
characters, it's your mother tongue and the language you prefer – why would
you want it any other way?
You know a bit of English because you used to watch quite a lot of English
language TV programs and movies although there are many more Chinese
broadcasts that are available nowadays.
But for some reason, domains are still type in English. Like the most popular site
in China, for example, http://www.baidu.com.
It seems strange to you that you still have to type website names in English.
Everything else you do on the computer is in Chinese, of course, whether it’s
writing emails to your friends and business associates, typing in search queries,
posting on forums etc. “I wonder why no one has created Chinese domains yet?”
Now, don't you get it and see the HUGE possibility of IDNs? Why on earth
would a local want to type domains in the English language? The only reason
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they do is because that is the way the internet was invented, way back when.
Luckily, Mr. Lee in China or Miss Bilal in Saudia Arabia have no need to be
frustrated anymore. They are now able to type domains in their local language,
thanks to IDN.
IDN.TLD
So, how do you write an IDN?
With IDNs, you can type the localised characters in front of the “dot”. So if you
take the Japanese market as an example, these are examples of IDNs:
ウェブ.jp
ブログ.com
テレビ.net
As you can see, the characters come before the dot.
After the dot are what are known in the domain world as the extensions or TLDs
(top level domains).
TLDs come in two types:
• gTLDs are “global” TLDs that do not give any meaning of location or
country e.g. .com, .net, .biz etc.
• ccTLDs are “country code” TLDs that are specific to a country e.g. .jp,
.co.uk, .de etc. These often cost more for you to buy than a gTLD and
sometimes you even need to satisfy special conditions like residency.
The main thing to remember is that TLDs and extensions are the same thing.
"But they still have to type the extensions in English," I hear you say.
Yes, you are correct, there is currently no real way to have the whole domain
including the extension in local language. But you can see that this is not a
problem at the moment for 2 reasons:
1) The market value of IDNs has risen and consumers are adopting then in spite
of this feature.
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2) There are plans well under way by ICANN (like a governing body of the
technical integration of domains) to convert the English extensions into their
local language equivalents within the next few years.
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Current IDN Trends
I hope that you now see the power of IDNs. When you think about the concept
of IDNs, it seems so logical and simple doesn't it?
Back in around 2003/4, not long after they first came out, there weren’t even
any forums for IDNs and people on the regular domain forums hardly ever
mentioned IDNs.
I was lucky to come across a few other speculators who told me about IDNs.
To me it seemed so logical - of course people want to type using their own

language.
I was ready to invest a little cash and had a punt on a few domains. I didn't go
in guns blazing.
What stopped me from investing more money was that killer of men - self doubt.
I thought - surely this is too good to be true? Why are the mainstream domain
speculators not getting into this? Better to be safe rather than sorry.
With the benefit of hindsight, I could not have been more wrong.
I wish I had invested more now because I would be a millionaire now! Yes, I
know many investors by name who are now sitting on several millions of
dollars of virtual real estate at current market values. And they could sell
up all of it today if they wanted to but why should they if prices are going to go
up even further?
IDNs are no longer some kind of black magic. They are a reality and no longer in
their infancy. If you think of a product life cycle curve (not the best analogy but
it will do), then IDNs have passed stage 1 which is the infancy of the product.
They are now at the stage where they are already profitable and growth is
increasing every year. All the ships have not yet left the harbour so GET IN
NOW!
In this section, I'm going to tell you about the current IDN situation so you can
get up to speed on the market and where the current opportunities are.
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Major Countries Where Consumers Are Adopting IDNs
IDNs can be used all over the world. Think about it - every country that has
characters that aren't in your standard A-Z alphabet can and wants to use IDNs.
I'm going to tell you shortly in more detail about the individual country where
there has been the biggest growth but here is just a snapshot of where we are:
● Russia is doing the best by far in terms of combined consumer adoption

and traffic. The Russians use the Cyrillic alphabet and have really taken to
heart the idea of using local language for domains.
● Japan - IDNs are gaining a foothold in several East Asian countries but by
far, Japan is doing the best. IDN.jp domains (IDN domains with a .jp
extension) are getting traffic and being actively branded to the mass
markets. This would be even higher if not for some minor technical
delays.
● Roman character countries where their alphabet is similar to the English

alphabet except for accents and a few extra characters are doing very well
and show some of the most frequent and largest domain sales in the
secondary market e.g. Germany, Spain, France.
● Other countries are showing varying levels of adoption and popularity

depending on a number of technical factors and country specific factors.
The trend in all of them though is resoundingly UPWARDS.
Why Are IDNs Good For Internet Marketers?
It’s not only domain speculators who can benefit from IDNs. So can internet
marketers!
I want to show you in this guide how IDNs are already becoming valuable and
are going to increase in value to even higher levels in future.
As a domain speculator, you can buy them for (a) gains or for (b) future income,
but there are also incredible opportunities for internet marketers.
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I know that most internet marketers want to get a piece of the action in rapidly
growing overseas economies such as China and India and a few already have.
Let's look at some stats that were recently published in the NY Times about
China alone:
● over 210 million internet users.

● only 16% of the population is online!!
● only 5 millions users away from being the world's largest internet
community.
Now, for branding purposes alone, are you telling me that YOU can afford to
ignore IDNs? I think not!
The other thing you should know is that search engines are already giving SEO
value to IDNs. If you think about it, it's totally logical to do that. They have
always given SEO value to regular domains that are related to the content
hosted on them so it’s no surprise that you can get the same SEO benefit with an
IDN.
So Why Aren’t The Mainstream Domain Community Going

Nuts For IDNs?
Some of you may be asking - why haven't the mainstream domain community
fallen head over heels in love with IDNs?
Actually, they are starting to, and you are now seeing more and more of them
talk about IDNs and more and more mainstream speculators are investing in
them.
But there are two things I think you should know:
• First of all, the mainstream domain community seemed to have “blinkers”

on when IDNs first came out and just ignored them, if they had even
heard of them. Probably it didn’t help that they just seemed to "appear"
without much fanfare or education at all from ICANN. And those who had
heard of them thought they were "too good to be true" as an investment.
Typical fear of the unknown so I’ll follow the herd mentality. Even though
I, myself, punted on a few (which are now worth several thousand
dollars), most people did not.
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• Secondly, you have to remember that IDNs are still at a very early stage.
The major issues that you see around are not in getting consumers to like
them. Hell no, consumers seem to love them! Nope, the major hurdles
have been technical ones such as browser support. As these hurdles drop,
one by one, you can see that IDNs are getting more and more popular
and I personally believe that they are on the cusp of exploding (read what
I have to say about IE7 later on).
IDN Testing Phase And Evolutions With ICANN
As I mentioned earlier, you can see that IDNs have been a technical evolution
since they first came out.
It's not like your regular traditional domains where, say they want to add an
extension – it is pretty easy from a technical perspective to just bolt on support
for .info or .ws extensions.
In layman's terms, the "design of the internet" has had to change to allow IDNs
to work. And it will continue to change in future too, to allow IDN.IDN domains
to exist where the full domain is in local characters (e.g.영어사전.한국 instead of
영어사전.kr).
This is all being organised by ICANN who have various working groups and test
periods for each small change. Because the internet is so big and so many
people use it, you can’t just go WHAM BAM with a huge update!
They have to roll these changes out slowly and bit by bit. They don't want to be
too hasty and risk bringing down DNS and websites no longer working because
of it.
You can think of it as like a huge steam roller on a track of road. Slowly but
surely and carefully, it is getting from A to B. Not only that, but nothing can
get in its way to stop it reaching its destination!
IDN.IDN
I touched on this briefly before. IDN.IDN is when the full domain will be written
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in local characters.
It hasn't happened yet but plans are fully underway – countries and their
governments want it to happen.
From a layman's point of view it sounds easy to do - surely just repeat the
process you used to get the local characters before the "dot"?
The reality is that it is a slightly different technical challenge. But the different
countries have a strong desire for this to happen and plans are fully underway by
ICANN to implement it (remember that steamroller analogy I made).
There is much support from all over the world. Here's is just one example quote
that I got from the ICANN website:
On behalf of the Korean Government, I would like to submit written

comments on the implementation of Internationalized Top Level Domains
(IDN TLDs).
The Korean government supports the diligent and responsible introduction

of
IDN TLDs, based on the respect of culture, heritage and diversity. IDN
TLDs
will radically improve the end-user experience and have a significant
influence on the management of internet name resources in Korea.
Sincerely yours,
Jaeyoun Kim
National Internet Development Agency of Korea
And you know what they say: "where there's a will, there's a way".
The only question remaining is, what happens if you’ve already got an IDN.com
or IDN.net or whatever? Will you automatically get the local equivalent
extension? Or will you be left high and dry?
All the current talk is that these will be converted over. Think about it - do you
think ICANN would risk leaving people who have invested millions of dollars into
a domain plus branding? Do you think the countries want this for those
investors? The conversion is inevitable in my view and the rising market values
reflect this.
What you must understand about ICANN is that, as an organisation, they are
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pretty damn good. There is no infighting, no talk from governments that they are
going to abandon ICANN and go their own way, nothing like that. I take my hat
off them for their ability to navigate not only the technical hurdles of IDN but
also the political hurdles.
If nothing else, listen to what the market is saying. Look at what consumers are
starting to do. IDNs used to be the preserve of overseas speculators and now
locals are buying them up in droves! Look at the market price – this reflects the
confidence of the market.
By the way, this IDN.IDN phenomenon is only a challenge for those countries
that don't use the English alphabet. Whereas, if you think about a county like
Germany, then it has never had a problem with its extensions in the first place
and so is "fully IDN" already, probably one reason for the high value and
numerous sales of German IDN (there are no accents in .de so no need to
change anything).
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How You Can Earn Money With IDNs
Naturally, we are into IDNs because we want to make money! Although of

course, as I touched on earlier, there is also the indirect value you can get that
comes from the fantastic SEO possibilities of IDN as well as its branding qualities
(see section later called Developing IDN Sites).
But when it comes to pure domain speculation, there are basically two ways
of getting money from domains: income and capital gains.
If you think about it, this is pretty similar to owning shares in a company. Some
people are like traders and are in it to buy low and sell high.
Whereas others are in it for the long term and also look for a good regular
income (like a dividend) for income purposes.
Capital Gains
Most people are into IDNs for the capital gains.
The greatest beauty of all domains is hand registering a domain for $8 or

whatever and selling it for thousands at a later date. I can't think of any other
investment that gives such a great ROI (return on investment), can you?
It may stink of “get rich quick” but there are many people making a living in this
way. Their work comes down to thinking outside of the box and playing it smart
rather than working their butts off.
Those days in regular domains (roman characters) are almost all over. It is very
difficult to make money from hand registering your own domains and selling
them after they increase in value. Maybe you have tried yourself? I have done it
but it has been very hit and miss, personally speaking.
But the beauty of IDNs is the unchartered territory. There are so many regular
domains whose foreign equivalents are not yet taken. This is like winding the
clock back with regular domains! It’s like that movie, “Far and Away” with Tom
Cruise and Nicole Kidman where they go out and stake some land as their own!
In fact, the phrase “landrush” is also a domaining term for when a new type of
domain is released on the market.
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You might think that these foreign markets are smaller but this is not always the
case - remember those stats for China? Pretty soon, it may be that the Chinese
market will overtake the English one, to quote just one example. What do you
think will happen when their incomes levels rival those in the western world? The
mind boggles!
But it’s not just all about hand regging. You can also make a lot of money out of
the secondary market as well and buy from people who want to sell. Again, the
beauty of IDNs is that, because it is a less established market so far, some
people are letting go of domains for far less than they should. There are bargains
galore and I'll expand on that later in this guide.
In fact, when I touch on strategy later on, you’ll see why you must get your
fingers into the secondary market as well if you want to be a serious with IDNs.
Past IDN Sales
Still don't believe in the power of IDNs? Then take a look at some of these
reported sales in the secondary market, as taken from DNJournal, the top dog of
domain industry news.
ärzte.de ("medical profession" in German) $79,309

Ernährung.de ("nutrition" in German) $33,992
Singlebörse.de (typo of "singles exchange" in German) $15,569
Städtereisen.de ("city travel" in German) $60,168
東京.net ("Tokyo" in Japanese) $10,000
핸드폰.com ("hand phone" in Korean) $42,250
Also you should bear in mind that the secondary market for domains is nowhere
near as efficient as the stock market so some of these valuations are grossly
under what I reckon they should have gone for.
Parking
The other main way that you can make money from IDNs (and all domains in
general) is from "parking". This is when, instead of pointing your domain to your
host like you might normally do, you point to the nameservers (or do a URL
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forward) of a company who provide clickable ads and you are paid per click.
It’s called parking because it’s like parking your car. When you don’t use your
car, you park it. It would be nice to get some income for nothing wouldn’t it?
It's an easy way to generate money if you know that the domain is getting traffic
- and there are a couple of ways of getting traffic which I will get to in the next
section.
But what about parking? How does it work?
Parking provides relevant ads so your Joe Surfer who is visiting your domain
might find nothing but a parking page but hopefully he will still find a useful link
and click on it.
Here’s an example. I’m sure you’ve seen a parked page before but maybe you
didn’t know it.
Check out this link: http://www.sedoparking.com/warriorforum.com
Look familiar?
The problem with parking is that the ads or content served are not very
targetted. The best that you can do is choose a category that is closest to what
you think your visitors will be looking for.
Or the parker will do it’s best to serve you up related ads based on the domain
name. If you look at that example link then it’s serving up ads for “Indian
Warrior Figures!”
In my opinion, an internet marketer with a bit of capital could make a killing by

offering better parking facilities that offer more than just a category and auto
detection and give domain speculators much better click through rates. Can you
just imagine if even someone like Google moved in on the parking scene
knowing what they are capable of with Adwords and Adsense.
But why do people park anyway? You see, domain speculators don't like to waste
(in their eyes) time developing sites and making better targetted pages when
they could use that time to look for more domains. Many of them are a very
technical and scientific breed and winning with domains is about playing smart
and looking for more opportunities.
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In fact, it would cost them hardly anything to outsource some basic mini site
development but the fact remains that hardly any of them do.
Also, many of these parking companies leverage their resources and also offer
the ability to act as domain broker for you in return for a commission.
I have included a big list of parking companies in the tools and resources section
but here are the main big players:
• NameDrive (most popular for IDNs, this is my recommendation for most

of your IDNs)
• Domainhop – one of the earliest to provide IDN support
• Sedo
Type In Traffic
So how do your domains and your IDNs in particular get traffic? Especially for
IDNs, 99% of the traffic currently is coming from type ins.
What this means is that when you buy a domain and you find that it is getting
hits from seemingly “nowhere”, what is actually happening is that surfers are just
typing in www.<whatever>.com in the browser.
Yes, believe it or not, many surfers actually do search for stuff by typing it into
the address bar! It may be a tiny minority of all users but extrapolate it to a
global scale and it is significant.
You can also get traffic from typo domains e.g. warriorforun.com etc. These are
easy to spot for IDNs with roman alphabets such as German ones (there have
even been some big German IDN typo sales already) but much harder to spot for
other languages e.g. East Asian languages, unless you are a native speaker and
know the grammar of the language well.
Inbound Links
The other way that a domain might already have some traffic is through inbound
links such as for a domain that used to be a website. For regular domains this is
quite common - people pick up "dropped domains" all the time for this kind of
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traffic.
In fact, here’s a tip, some people buy these expired or dropped domains because
the traffic can be highly targeted to their niche and cheaper than PPC.
With IDNs, because they are so new, there are very few established sites that
have already dropped. Naturally, early adopters of IDN don't want to let go of
their sites at this stage and have plans for them.
Therefore this type of traffic for IDNs is pretty much non-existant and you
shouldn’t bother looking for it.
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So How Do IDNs Work In Practice?
Enough of why you might want an IDN - it's pretty obvious isn't it? To make
some money! Now let's see how they work in practice.
Technicalities
As I mentioned earlier, IDN is really a technical implementation allowing this

wonderful localisation of domains in the internet.
What this means for you is a whole new set of rules. You probably already
know how to register a regular domain at Godaddy or Namecheap and actually,
the process for an IDN is not too different.
But you do need to know about some important technical differences.
What Is Unicode And Punycode
The internet was invented before IDN so in order to get IDN working, it has to
"piggyback" some existing technical principles.
The first of these that you need to know is character encoding. Maybe you
know a little about this already - e.g. in your browser when you go to a foreign
website it looks like a bunch of blocks of characters. So you have to change the
character encoding to get it to look normal.
By the way, if you can't view some languages at the moment and it just looks like a
mess then you might need to install the appropriate language pack for your operating
system. For Vista and XP, you can do this by going to Control Panel and then
Regional and Language Options where you can add additional languages.
Now as we already know, by default, the internet doesn't like domains with
anything except a-z and numbers. So how can we suddenly get it to understand
foreign characters?
The answer is something called “unicode to punycode translation”. Sounds

bizarre you probably think, but it's really simple if I show you an example:
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If you typed the Latvian domain http://tūdaliņ.lv into an internet browser 5 years
ago then nothing would have happened. This is called the unicode form.
Recent browsers such as Firefox and IE7 will take this domain and translate it to
this: http://xn--tdali-d8a8w.lv. This is called the punycode form.
The internet structure as it stands today - everything in it, DNS servers etc. all
understand the second form (punycode). There are no special characters so
nothing gets confused.
As long as your internet browser is able to translate a domain in punycode

form to unicode form, then you can use IDNs. That’s right – the translation
happens at the browser level.
This is also a major factor in getting IDNs out to the masses and I'll cover this
very shortly later in this guide.
By the way, don't worry about how you can type a Chinese or Russian character
on your keyboard. You'll never need to know because most of the time when
you're looking for IDNs, you'll just be copying and pasting from the web.
I've never manually typed one of these characters and never needed to, and a
local would have a specially labelled keyboard. Because you only need to
translate and never need to write from scratch then this doesn't matter.
Ascii Domains
Domain speculators like to differentiate between IDNs and other domains. Up till
now, I've called these other domains "regular" or "traditional" domains.
From now on, we can call them "ascii domains". This is what IDNers like to call
them and the name comes from a very old character set very similar to the one
on a standard English keyboard, which is all you need to type these older style
domains.
Registering An IDN
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Naturally, you'll want to score some fresh registrations if possible as these cost
practically nothing and you could get some amazing ROI.
The process is pretty similar when you compare it to ascii domains.
In the area of domain speculation, your biggest costs (or your only cost if you
don't outsource any development or research) are registration and renewal
fees.
So I advise you to shop around depending on which TLD/ccTLD you are buying
as the prices will vary quite a lot.
Also, a registrar might have a great first time registration price but then they lock
you in and renewals are expensive. You probably have seen this before with ascii
domains.
Another thing – it’s worth registering where other IDN speculators register their
domains for 3 reasons:
• probably offers value for money

• these registrars know their customers (IDN speculators) and what they
want
• easier to “push” or transfer a domain between buyer and seller when both
have an account at the same registrar.
I've included a big list of registrars in the tools and resources section near the
end of this guide but here are the big hitters and I recommend you open an
account now with all of them because you will need it later.
• Dynadot – newer kid on the block but a very good interface and has
quickly gained popularity. If you want to help me out, please enter the
code 7r8i8Q06u6k8x6s into the “refer-a-friend” box at the bottom of
the application form.
• DomainSite – very experienced IDN registrar.
• eNom
The other thing for you to note is that when you want to register an IDN, you
simply input the “local” or unicode version (e.g. 新奥尔良.com) and the registrar
will automatically do the conversion to punycode as necessary and tell you if the
domain is free or registered.
And don’t forget - there is also always a language drop down list to choose from.
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It might seem strange that you need to select a language when you think it
should be obvious but I have heard of problems if you don't select it so I
recommend you do this simple step.
Market Divisions And Technical Characteristics
There are a few main IDN markets with common characteristics and in this
section I'll tell you briefly about each one.
These are minor and there is even more variation when you drill down much
further to, say, the country level.
Roman Language Domains
First of all you have domains using mostly roman characters. What I mean here
are those domains with characters mostly on your keyboard and maybe the odd
accent of two. So, for example, German, French and Spanish would come into
this category.
These don't suffer from the problems of needing an IDN TLD as their TLDs can
already be typed easily with a standard English keyboard e.g. ".de"
Already there have been many large IDN sales in Germany for domains in the
form IDN.de.
As many regular domain speculators already know, .de is, along with .co.uk and
others, one of the most highly developed markets for domain speculation in
terms of trading and big ticket sales. So it's not a surprise when you see this
type of activity for IDN.de so soon.
The great thing is that a person might think that the Germans would not get too
thrilled about the addition of an umlaut to their range of possible domains e.g.
www.möchte.de instead of www.mochte.de.
Well, the reality is that the market has taken to these very well and surfers are
voting with their key presses and prefer to get as close to their native language
as possible.
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Non-Roman Language Domains
Non-roman markets have attracted more interest from IDN investors probably
because they offer many more possibilities (the whole language as opposed to
just a few words).
Not only will these markets probably abandon most of their English domains over
time but also each market within this group is very different and presents
different opportunities.
For example, the Chinese market versus the Arabic market. As you can guess,
they don't exactly have similar cultures. The differences in languages also mean
that you have to sometimes take a different approach when looking for free
domains to register.
I'll cover these markets in greater detail in the next few sections.
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)
One of the earliest technical hurdles for IDN to overcome was good browser
support.
Remember the steamroller analogy - it may be slow moving but it will get there
because the will is there!
For IDN to work, we know that the browser needs to be able to translate from
punycode to unicode.
If most of the world types in an IDN and nothing happens then IDN can never be
a success.
Firefox has had this ability for some time but back when I first looked into IDNs
in around 2003, IE did not support it (I think we were on version 5 then). In fact,
I had to install some Verisign plugins to get it to work.
Because most of the world uses IE (even today), then getting IE to translate
punycode to unicode was essential. It took some time, but eventually that
support is now here within IE7.
Now the problem is, much of the world is not yet using IE7. In East Asia
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IDN on Steroids
especially (with huge markets such as Japan, Korea and China) many are not
using IE7 which I think is due to technical delays from Microsoft with IE7 auto
updating.
Places like Russia have a much higher number of people on IE7 and this is one
reason why IDNs have exploded there.
Now the magic date to put in your calendar is February 12th. This is when we
expect that IE7 will be rolled out to the entire world on an auto update and you
should see an acceleration in demand for IDN (and thus prices too).
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Types of IDN
OK, now it's time to learn about the different types of IDNs. Apart from IDNs for
different countries there are even other IDNs such as symbols.
Countries
Every country is unique when it comes to IDN. Even for ascii domains, different
words have different popularities in different countries.
In IDN it gets even more complex. Some countries prefer to use ccTLD rather
than gTLD for instance (e.g. .jp instead of .com).
Also, you have the problem of translation. Believe it or not, an online dictionary
is pretty good for most uses. But sometimes there are problems with grammar
that you need to be cautious of when registering a domain or buying one from
someone.
Many times I have seen someone proudly say they have bought a top dictionary
word generic IDN in a hot market. Obviously, the original one went ages ago but
maybe the chap has picked up an alternative name that is hardly ever used or
something similar.
And you should beware of scammers who try to present you a fantastic
opportunity. I have not heard of this going on but I’m sure there are a few.
Japanese IDNs
The Japanese market has, until recently, been the shining star in the portfolio of
IDN investors and has been surpassed recently by Russia, and that is only
because of IDN penetration in that country.
Basically, the Japanese market seem to love IDNs and they are being branded in
offline media, in subway train advertising space, for example. Japanese are well
known for embracing new technology and you can see that IDN has been no
different.
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Big companies are also pushing IDN. For example, Nissan is featuring its IDN
domain in its recent commercials.
And don't forget that IDNs also work in many mobile browsers, which is an
important market in Japan.
The other thing to note is that Japanese prefer IDN.jp (ccTLD) domains rather
than IDN.com and other gTLD domains.
Chinese IDNs
The Chinese market is obviously incredible important. I posted some stats early
but did I really need to? Surely you already know the MASSIVE potential in
China. Obviously then, Chinese domains are better than gold.
Compared to Japan, the traffic is not yet as high and they have yet to gain as
strong a foothold with surfers.
The main domains of interest are IDN.com and IDN.cn but to register the .cn
you also need to be a local so this is ruled out for many people.
The other thing that you should know is that the Chinese use two styles of
writing - one is called simplified and the other is traditional. The first is used
mainly in China and the second is used mainly in Taiwan and Hong Kong -
something to bear in mind.
There is some uncertainty about what will happen if you already hold existing
IDN.com and IDN.net domains because China already has its own versions which
are fully IDN (that is IDN.IDN). However, these don't comply with ICANN and are
a domestic "fudge" so it is thought if you currently have IDN.com and IDN.net,
then you will eventually get the local language equivalents and the existing
“fudges” will get a lower subset of domain.
It's all about politics and negotiations but, at the end of the day, look at the
market prices of IDN.com and IDN.net Chinese domains. They have gone up and
are considered premium. The market does not see any danger at the moment or
in the future - otherwise they would be worthless.
And remember, jurisdiction over ".com" the world's leading TLD, is with the USA
and not China. This is the case for all countries which is another reason why
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IDN on Steroids
.com is so highly sought after.
Russian IDNs
The Russian market is the best of all IDN markets at the moment. This is
because a lot of people are on IE7 and they are just lapping up being able to
type domains in their own language.
Unfortunately for you and I, this means that most of the good dictionary word
generic IDN domains are gone but there are still bargains to be found on the
secondary market.
One of the more famous sales in recent times was for москва.com
(Moscow.com) which sold for a meagre $16,000. Remember, that's at today's
prices. Who knows what it will be worth a few years from now.
At the moment, only IDN.com is available. There is no such thing currently as

IDN.ru. This is probably a good thing as it means that your Russian IDN.com
domains are under jurisdiction of the USA and not Russia.
It also looks like Russians want IDN.IDN for the future such as IDN.РФ. Keep
your eyes peeled for the landrush.
This is an example of a government not even wanting to use their existing ccTLD
(.ru) for IDN, they want to go straight to IDN.IDN.
If that's not a great push for IDN then I don't know what is!
Arabic IDNs
Arabic domains have incredible potential due to the sheer number of countries
that it is spoken in. Can you imagine getting traffic from Morocco, Algeria,
Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Lebanon and many,
many more! According to Wikipedia, there are up to half a billion Arabic speakers
in the world.
Again, because Arabic IDNs have been available for some years, many premium
dictionary generic words have gone but there are still second tier domains
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IDN on Steroids
available that will have value in the future.
The secondary market for Arabic IDNs is also very active and such dictionary
generics can be picked up even for as low as less than $100.
German IDNs
The German market is well established. This means that all the good IDN.de
were taken a long time ago. Also remember that most German words don't use
accent or umlauts so the supply of German IDNs was very low to begin with.
You may still be able to find some good IDN.com domains but a lot of IDN
investors ignore the German market because it doesn't offer the potential and
diversity compared to emerging markets, for instance.
Korean IDNs
Korea is a well established market for domain names. In fact, there are even
more domains registered there (per head) compared to Japan.
Most of the good IDN.com domains have gone so you may find some on the
secondary market. IDN.net domains are valued less highly but you may get
better pickings there.
To get IDN.kr domains you need a local contact address so either you need to be
Korean or have a local agent. Like with most ccTLDs this is an expensive
process, although not impossible.
Perhaps one area that is worth you looking into is IDN.biz which were only
released last year.
The problem with .biz is that they are considered third or fourth rate ccTLDs, at
least in the established ascii domain market. But Koreans have adopted IDNs
with a great ferocity so who knows what they might be worth in the future?
Some people also say that .biz are a lot more popular in Asia compared to the
west. It may also be worth checking out IDN.info too.
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Hindi IDNs
India is one of those markets that you see and cannot ignore at first glance.
Although Indians speak many languages, there are perhaps up to 400 million
native Hindi speakers and 120 million who speak it as a second language.
We all know how quickly India, like China, is evolving and its people are
becoming more wealthy and affluent so this market is important in terms of IDN.
However, there is a perception amongst some that, because most Indians

currently use English to navigate the internet (Indians have excellent levels of
English education and many western companies outsource 1st line call centres to
India), that they will not change to use Hindi in future.
If you believe in a future of Hindi IDNs then that means that there are quite a
few bargains to be had in the secondary market. The only caveat is that these
are long term investments compared to other IDNs so don't expect to flip them
anytime soon.
Emerging Markets
There are many emerging markets out there that are experiencing rapid growth
in number of internet users and where you can find much more IDN gold as they
have not yet been plundered by domain speculators to the same extent as other
countries like Japan.
If you are new to IDN, then this is where you can find most of the hand reg
pickings.
There are too many to list but here are a few promising ones:
• Vietnam
• Hungary
• Azerbaijan
• Hungary
• Poland
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IDN on Steroids
Symbol IDNs
Remember that Wingdings font that you played around with in Word? Well,
believe it or not but you can have a domain like ☎.com (yes, that’s a picture of a
phone!!)
☎.com translates to http://xn--y3h.com and you can see that the person who
owns this domain is showing phone related products!
It's brandable for sure but I can't see anyone typing that into their browser!
Most of these (the IDN crowd call them "dingbats" although Dingbats are
actually a subset of Wingdings – click here if you really want more info!) are
probably useless but there are a few that can even be typed in that might fetch
something in future.
My advice is to not even bother trying to register these or buy from someone in
the secondary market. They are strictly for novelty value!
Strange TLDs
There are a bunch of other TLDs that you can register such as .cc, .biz, .ws, .tv.
These only have limited popularity even for regular ascii domains so the current
market value for IDN versions is even lower. It is debatable whether you will
ever be able to sell these for a decent price although in some parts of Asia there
are some companies using .biz, for instance.
In my opinion, it's better to go after a younger market and stick with .com, .net
or ccTLD instead (country specific) – maybe .info at a push.
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Strategies For Finding IDNs
There are basically two ways of getting any domain, whether it is IDN or not.
One if to find a name that is not currently registered with anyone and the other
is to buy from someone else who can transfer ownership. But we also need a
way to value domains as well before deciding to part with our cash.
Appraisal
You can't choose a name without knowing what it is worth. Probably you have
bought an ascii domain in the past and thought it was great until someone
pointed out to you that it was worthless!
This is where we need to develop good appraisal skills and in IDN it is much
more complex. But remember, where there are greater barriers to entry and
more difficulties, there is usually also more gold!
Overture
We can appraise a domain's value by gut feel but there are very few substitutes
to real quantitative data.
The best data that exists is Overture (although it is an extremely slow site!). If
you are an internet marketer then you probably already know all about Overture
already. Well, this data also exists for many other markets such as Japan and
China.
In case you're not familiar with Overture, it's a system where you type a phrase and it
shows the number of people who searched for that phrase in a particular search
engine.
A high overture score can give you some good confirmation that a domain is
worth something. Why? Because if consumers are searching for a phrase in high
numbers then, in general, you can assume that it therefore has some high
commercial value. But you need to put it into context as there may be some
highly searched terms that have no commercial value at all.
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Always make sure that you do not use Overture alone, and check the translation
and use other methods listed below as well.
Where Overture does not apply, you can look for an alternative - for instance
Yandex is Russia's equivalent.
Opinions of Real Natives
You cannot beat getting the advice of a local. Only a local can be aware of your
grammatical errors or notice the idioms of the language and multiple meanings
or words that you would never spot.
If you are an internet marketer, you should have an advantage here - you can
use your existing outsourcing abilities and knowledge to obtain some good
translations and maybe even qualify them over the phone using Skype?
Outsourcing is a much underutilised activity in the domain speculators world.
Google Images
Google Image Search is a great way of building up a picture of a domain's worth.

Those characters might be meaningless to you but if you plug them into Google
Images and every picture looks the same (e.g. a picture of a dog) then you can
be pretty sure you know that you have a widely used term and probably the
most commonly used.
If, on the other hand, you get very mixed image results and can't even work out
the common theme then you can be pretty sure that your word isn't very
brandable. It could even be some kind of grammatical construction and is
unlikely to be something that a lot of people on the internet would be looking
for.
Google Search & Adwords
Another good idea is to check out the standard Google search engine results. I
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IDN on Steroids
recommend checking the local search engine and also looking for Adwords ads.
For example, if you take what I believe to be the Chinese word for “cars” which
is “轿车” and plug it into Google China then you can look at the domain names
of the sites returned (still mostly English of course because IDN is not being used
by everyone yet) and also look for any English descriptions to give you some
clues.
In this case, you can see sino-cars.com.cn and faw-mazda.com as some of the
sites, so you get a pretty good idea that the translator was correct and this is a
premium name.
Also, there are a number of Adwords ads on the right hand side of the page so
you can see that companies are bidding on this keyword so, again, it gives you a
good indication of commercial value.
Use Your Common Sense
Above everything else, use your common sense when appraising a potential
domain purchase.
Run some searches on Google and check the sites that come up, check the
Images results, try to find a local, use Overture if it is available, look closely at
the sites where your search term comes up (a good tip is to use the Google
cache as it highlights your search terms) and see if you can infer anything from
the placement of the word.
New Registrations
How To Find New Registrations (Hand Regs) for IDNs
If you're looking to hand register (first time) some domains then no doubt you
will be restricting yourself to the emerging markets for the gold.
But where do you start?
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Frankly, there are so many ways to go out and find the gold. Many speculators
keep their strategies secret and reveal only to their closes confidantes.
Ultimately, this is an informational exercise and because you have access to the
web, all the tools and resources you need are out there. It’s just a question of
you “thinking outside of the box” and making the most of them.
There are so many possibilities and once you get going, ideas could pop into
your head at any time e.g. on the bus, so I recommend that you keep a
notebook.
However, I do have a few suggestions of my own that I use both for ascii and
IDNs.
What you want to do is to build up your own word list. I suggest to use Excel or
Open Office to keep these lists.
You can go ahead and use Notepad if you wish. But personally, I like to annotate
or label my word lists and domain lists and this will be a royal pain in the
you_know_where if you try to do it with Notepad.
Now you can either collect word lists in English or the local language.
If you collect a word list in English then think about sites where you might find
category names or lists of consumer goods. Copy and paste as much as you can
and don't worry about dupes as these are easily filtered out.
You want this list to grow with time because at any given moment you will run
this list through a translator such as Google Translate and stuff the output into a
bulk domain checker on a registrar's site.
By the way, if you are going to get serious then you might want to
consider getting a program to manage your bulk checking. These can do
all sorts of things like use proxies for faster checking or just throw in a
huge wordlist and leave it running while you have a coffee – no more
pasting into a slow web form in groups of 50. My own personal preference
is DRT. You can click here to check out the many features and videos of
this excellent program which is good for both IDN and ascii domains.
The other way you can do it is to make a word list in the local language by
copying the words from a website. Although you can't really use this word list for
other languages (the translation from one language to another could well be
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IDN on Steroids
worse than with English as one leg of the translation), it should be much better
targeted as it never went through a translator.
The other way you can find hand regs is to brainstorm and try to figure out
where new words on the internet originate. Or try to think out of the box and
where the mainstream have not yet looked. This is tough and you have the
added complexity of a foreign language. But just like the gold panning days,
there is still gold to be had if you are willing to put in the effort!
Nevertheless, it is not impossible for you to find good hand regs, even today in
2008. Plus there are many countries that still have “landrushes”. For instance, at
the time of writing, Spain recently had an IDN.info landrush just a few days ago.
Oh, and here's a tip I have used when buying any domains, ascii or IDN. Let’s
say that you've found some available domains and are about to register. You
have a shortlist ready for registering. My advice is to ditch 90% of them. That's
just a personal tip and has stopped me buying useless domains. It is so easy to
get worked up about a domain that you think is good and then end up buying it
and wasting ten bucks! If you don’t ditch them then at least have a second look
or ask a friend.
Secondary Market
The secondary market is full of IDN bargains and should definitely not be
ignored. Also, unlike ascii domains, you don't need huge amounts of capital to
get a foothold in the secondary market.
Grabbing a Dropped Domain
Unlike the ascii market, where you can register with several companies in
preparation, there is no established way of back ordering a domain that has
dropped (owner is not renewing it) and hoping to grab it.
There are some pros who use scripts but, from what I can tell, it is very difficult
to compete against them.
Instead, if you want to grab a name that has dropped then you should use one
of the auction services who, if they grab it, will offer it to the highest bidder.
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The main auctioneer for recently dropped domains is SnapNames and you can
even download an Excel formatted list of domains to be auctioned.
Picking Up Bargains From The Forums
Forums are the other good place where you can pick up some bargains. People
have different motivations for letting go their domains but there do seem to be a
lot of bargains to be had.
Make sure you don't just look at the very busy or IDN-centric forums but also
check out the smaller ones too.
On these forums, there are often two types of sections. One is for fixed price and
the other is for auction. Remember though that everything is negotiable - I
would take the phrase "fixed price" with a pinch of salt.
Also, if you are buying high value domains, I recommend that you play it safe
and use an escrow service. One of the more popular ones is Moniker.
There is a list of these forums with IDN sections in the Tools and Resources
section.
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Overall Investment Strategies
There are many overall investment strategies used by speculators and here are a
few of them.
Diversification
Diversification is something that you and everyone should try to achieve.
Now that we've seen a lot of movement in IDNs, the risks of this type of
investment are far lower than, say, four years ago.
But there are still some risks, particularly with registering ccTLDs. Technically,
these are under the country's jurisdiction and in some cases could potentially be
taken away from you and you would have little recourse from your bedroom in
New York, London or wherever.
The opposite of diversification is to put your eggs in one or a few baskets. The
potential upside for you is much greater but then so is the downside.
This decision is a personal one depending on how much risk you are happy to
live with.
It’s exactly the same principle as in the stock market. There is always a level of
risk with a pool if investments. If you diversify, you can never eliminate the risk.
But if you do, then you can get close to the theoretical minimum amount of risk
called systemic risk (click the link for more info).
Cover Your Reg Fees
There are many IDN speculators who know that there is a lot of potential there
and already some realised value. Eventually, they decide that they have spent
enough and will no longer buy any more for their portfolio.
They also chose their domains very wisely so that the money received from
parking, comfortably covers their annual registration fees. Basically each domain
should earn on average about 8 or 9 bucks in parking income. This is easier in
some countries where PPC is established.
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IDN on Steroids
If you have a lot of domains that are more speculative plays or in emerging
markets then they you might need to sell a few each year to cover the fees.
If they get this right then there is no downside and only upside. The only loss
each year is your time and the "only way is up"!
A Good Beginner’s Strategy
I recently asked on one of the forums, what a good strategy might be for a
newcomer. I figured it would be to go for secondary market bargains and some
new registrations in emerging markets but I also received some more excellent
advice:
• New registration gold can be found in emerging markets such as Bangla

and Azeri.
• If you have the capital, stick with the secondary market. You’ll get a
better return on your time and money combined.
• There are still many second tier hand regs available but be prepared to
wait for the value to appreciate.
• Like you would your pension or your investments, diversify between low
risk (e.g. Japan) and high risk (e.g. Venezuela).
• Study the broader market such as relative country growth rates,

population numbers etc.
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Other Characteristics of the IDN Market
The Naysayers and Doommongers
Today, you'll find very few people saying bad things about investing in IDNs but
the situation four years ago was completely different. It’s a sign of how far IDNs
have come in terms of acceptance by consumers and traditional domain
speculators.
Four years ago, IDN investors were derided for their beliefs and their investment
decisions. Today, you hardly ever see this criticism on mainstream domain
forums.
Part of this is the ever looming realisation that IDNs are here to stay and
becoming more popular each year. The political will is also there. Nearly all the
mainstream forums now have an IDN section and active community.
These sections have been created because the demand was driven by more
people converting to IDN and helped by many “big hitters” announcing that IDNs
are the way to go.
The Active IDN Community
Most of the active IDN community hang out on IDNForums.com. If you want to
learn more about IDNs then there is no single better place to go and you cannot
learn more anywhere else.
There is a mixture of people on there – you have the "founder members" who
are sitting on millions of dollars of virtual real estate (even at today's
values) to those who are new to the game like you probably will be.
Domain Tasting
Some registrars offer you the ability to give your domain back if you don't want
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IDN on Steroids
it, within 5 days of purchase. This is called "domain tasting".
Many people can therefore buy a domain, test it to see if there is any traffic
being received to it, and then decide to keep or return it.
It is frowned upon somewhat, even by Google according to recent news, so it

may not be here to stay.
Trademarks
In regular ascii domains, there is simply no point in getting a trademarked name.

The complainant will simply file for a WIPO arbitration which does not cost them
much and who will almost certainly rule in their favour.
In the IDN world, it is a lot more muddy. For instance, in many languages they
use phonetic translations which sound similar to the original.
So in China they probably call Britney Spears by her phonetic translation which
sounds like a Chinese person saying "Britney Spears" in his best English!
Incidentally, I quickly checked Wikipedia and the .com for 布蘭妮斯皮爾斯.

com appears to be free! But strangely the .org isn't - perhaps it's not
very valuable or my translation is wrong.
But it illustrates to you the point - can you use a phonetic translation and get
away with it? IDN is such an immature market at the moment that there have
not been any significant test cases that I know of.
There have been trademark cases for romanised language domains such as for
instance, the French domain créditmutuel.net, where a cybersquatter registered
the IDN.net including the é (with accent). Obviously, this is a more
straightforward case.
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Developing IDN Sites
This is where internet marketers can really come into their own and where
domain speculators have traditionally lacked the know how.
A developed foreign language (from your perspective) website will be quite

similar to those in the western world, the main differences being:
● The need to hire translators if you do not know the local language.
● Local customs.
● Local laws to comply with.
Even if your time is valuable, internet marketers are better placed to leverage
resources such as outsourced contractors who will do the work for them.
Hosting With IDNs
So how to you set up your host when you want to have a website under your
IDN domain?
It's simple - first of all you just set up the nameservers or DNS entries at the
registrar like you normally would.
Next, when you add the domain via your host's control panel, you just enter the
punycode version of the domain e.g. xn--tdali-d8a8w.com
Remember that the browser handles the redirection so the underlying site is the
punycode which is understood by all machines on the internet.
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Selling IDNs
Unless you're in it purely for the parking income or other future income, then
one day you'll want to want to cash in and sell at least some of your IDN
portfolio.
In many ways you're in a much stronger position than the buyer because if
you've checked your stats then you will know the current traffic and income for
the domain.
The only way you might lose out is if the buyer thinks that the domain has a
higher potential future value but I guess that is his opinion versus your own and
of little consideration if you have decided to sell.
I have not yet sold any of my limited IDN portfolio but I do know from my ascii
domain trading days that there tend to be a few different types of buyers.
Some buyers will spot value but never negotiate. You can call their bluff and
demand a higher price than their first offer but risk losing the sale.
But normally, most buyers expect a shrewd domain seller to reject the first offer
and demand more, especially if he has competition.
The best places to sell are at the domain forums (especially IDN Forums) where
they usually have an open auction format where you can clearly see who is
bidding and competing for your domain. Just create a new thread and offer your
domains for sale and the bids will start coming in, such is the good liquidity in
the secondary market.
Even if you go into one of the appraisal sections on a forum and ask people to
appraise your domains, you can bet that you'll get several PMs. This is similar to
a blind auction where each bidder cannot see the other bids, unless you tell
them.
You should also make sure that your address details with your registrar are kept
up to date. This way, potential buyers can contact you if they want to make you
an offer.
If you have a really big ticket domain to sell, then you are better off going to
SnapNames who will get you an audience with the big hitters.
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I would advise that you look on some of the forums at some of the historic sales
to get an idea of what different domains are worth.
And again, if you are selling a mid to high value domain but not high enough to
go with someone like SnapNames, play it safe and use a reputable escrow
service such as Moniker.
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IDN on Steroids
Tools and Resources
Here are some excellent tools and resources that I highly recommend you check
out:
Registrars
Dynadot – newer kid on the block but a very good interface and has quickly
gained popularity. If you want to help me out, please enter the code
7r8i8Q06u6k8x6s into the “refer-a-friend” box at the bottom of the application
form.
DomainSite – very experienced IDN registrar.
eNom
Moniker
JP Domains – excellent for Japanese domains.
Parking Sites
NameDrive
Sedo
Parking Panel
NameRich – good for Chinese traffic.
Parked.ru – site in Russian language!
Traffic Checkers
Overture China
Overture Japan
Yandex – Russian traffic
Tools
DRT – Bulk checker and more. This is a fantastic tool that I own myself and
highly recommend, good for both IDN and ascii. Click the link to check out the
features and videos of it in action.
IDN Tools - Droplists, traffic estimators and much more.
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IDN on Steroids
Forums with IDN sections
IDN Forums – the best place to hang out to learn and talk about IDN, bar none.
DNForum – this is the biggest meeting point for the domain industry as a whole
– serious domain speculators here and very few “kids”.
Namepros – very friendly general domains community with a small IDN section.
DNLocal – the next biggest place to chat about IDNs, after IDN Forums above.
DomainState – like Namepros, a general forum with a nice community and a
small IDN section.
Blogs and other Sites reporting on IDNs
domaining blog – good domain news, mainstream and IDN.

IDNFAQ – various IDN resources.
IDNSearch – bizarre site – submit your IDN and show it off!
IDNcyclopedia - IDN news.
IDN Talk – a blog by Olney, a big IDN investor.
IDN News – IDN news blog, just like it says!
DomainTools Blog – decent general domain name news.
IDNs.ws – country population stats and handy online dictionary links
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IDN on Steroids
What Future Can We See For IDNs?
So you can see that IDNs are still very much in their infancy but now taking a
good foothold in many markets.
It's a bit like a child who is pretty close to learning how to walk - they are
making testing movements with their legs and you know that it is only a matter
of days before they start to walk on their own.
Why February 12 Is an Important Date
I mentioned it earlier but I'll say it again to you - February 12th is an important
date in IDN. Now don't expect an explosion of traffic when IE7 becomes a
compulsory update but do expect an increased rate of growth in traffic and value
of IDNs.
Personally, I think that shortly after, a lot more mainstream domainers will enter
the market and this will further inflate prices so it's important to GET IN NOW!
It's a bit like the stock market, you see. In a highly efficient market then if the
market expects a half percent cut in interest rates and it actually happens then it
will not move at all - because it expected it and therefore it was already factored
into the market price.
Well, the IDN market is far from being an efficient market and it is my belief that
we will see an even more pronounced appreciation in prices in the months after
February compared to the months before.
IDN.IDN
IDN.IDN is the future of the IDN world. You have already seen that even
IDN.com and ccTLD IDNs in their current forms are valuable.
ICANN works hard to ensure slow, well tested and meaningful changes - this also
includes the conversion from existing TLDs to their local language equivalents.
This requires a lot of negotiation at local level in each of the countries but the
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IDN on Steroids
results so far are promising and the market believes it too as you can see in the
healthy prices for domains.
And remember, no country wants to upset the current holders of IDN - it is not
just a bunch of foreign speculating investors who are at risk but many, many
natives as well.
Add to this that many of those attending the industry roundtables have been
quoted as saying words to the effect of "the benefits of implementing IDN.IDN
will outweigh the work needed to get it done". This is the resounding opinion of
many parties concerned.
Therefore I think the future is very bright indeed.
Stay Abreast of Landrushes
A landrush is when a new extension or similar is announced and speculators rush

to get the available gold out there.
Although some names are reserved for locals and others, you can get a lot of
gold if you get in there within the first few days.
Remember to keep that regularly updated word list as it will come in useful and
keep reading the forums to stay abreast of news of impending landrushes.
One of my mistakes recently was that I was so concentrated on the IM world

that I neglected the world of domains. Lesson learned!
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IDN on Steroids
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this guide to be very enlightening and useful.
Remember that there is still gold out there to be found. This is definitely a time
when that old mantra “take action” is especially fitting!
If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to contact me at
Good luck and may you have much success with IDNs!
Chris Smith
ProfitswithChris.com
Page 49

IDN On Steroids

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This publication is subject to international copyright law and cannot be copied or

I do not make any guarantees or claims for your performance or results.

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WHAT ARE IDNS?........................................................................................................................................6

TOOLS AND RESOURCES.......................................................................................................................45

WHAT FUTURE CAN WE SEE FOR IDNS?..........................................................................................47

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

WHY FEBRUARY 12 IS AN IMPORTANT DATE .....................................................................................................47

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

What are IDNs?

What Are IDNs And Why Should I Care?

Let’s start with the basics - what are IDNs anyway?

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

So, how do you write an IDN?

As you can see, the characters come before the dot.

TLDs come in two types:

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© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

Current IDN Trends

To me it seemed so logical - of course people want to type using their own

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

Major Countries Where Consumers Are Adopting IDNs

● Russia is doing the best by far in terms of combined consumer adoption

● Roman character countries where their alphabet is similar to the English

● Other countries are showing varying levels of adoption and popularity

Why Are IDNs Good For Internet Marketers?

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

● over 210 million internet users.

So Why Aren’t The Mainstream Domain Community Going

But there are two things I think you should know:

• First of all, the mainstream domain community seemed to have “blinkers”

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

IDN Testing Phase And Evolutions With ICANN

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

On behalf of the Korean Government, I would like to submit written

The Korean government supports the diligent and responsible introduction

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

How You Can Earn Money With IDNs

Naturally, we are into IDNs because we want to make money! Although of

Most people are into IDNs for the capital gains.

The greatest beauty of all domains is hand registering a domain for $8 or

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

Past IDN Sales

ärzte.de ("medical profession" in German) $79,309

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

But what about parking? How does it work?

Check out this link: http://www.sedoparking.com/warriorforum.com

In my opinion, an internet marketer with a bit of capital could make a killing by

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

• NameDrive (most popular for IDNs, this is my recommendation for most

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com

So How Do IDNs Work In Practice?

As I mentioned earlier, IDN is really a technical implementation allowing this

But you do need to know about some important technical differences.

What Is Unicode And Punycode

The answer is something called “unicode to punycode translation”. Sounds

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As long as your internet browser is able to translate a domain in punycode

© 2008 ProfitsWithChris.com www.ProfitsWithChris.com