A few good friends started a casual email discussion as to why IDNs are valuable. Spurred on by their thoughtful responses, here are my thoughts on the matter:
Pent-Up Demand Leading to Future Value:In many countries IDNs will displace Latin domains as the domains of choice since native language domains are preferred. As an example, see .РФ names where in two months since release, over 700,000 Russian IDNs were registered. As another example, see China where long strings of numeric domains were used as a makeshift solution for the lack of Chinese domains. Imagine if you, as an English speaker, had to register domains in Chinese for all these years and then awareness just began to build that English domains are becoming available on both sides of the dot — this is the excitement that many non-English speakers feel towards IDNs. Natives have native language keyboards, mainly read native language newspapers, magazines, and internet content, write native language emails, letters and watch native language movies and T.V. As awareness continues to build that IDNs exist and native language domains are available their adoption will continue to spike.
Cost Effectiveness:For $500, a startup Israeli company for instance can get a Hebrew domain that is infinitely more memorable than a Latin domain that can be purchased for $500.
Brandable Value:Many customers could more effectively remember and relate to a brand in one’s native language. Some Asian companies have even branded as “(Japanese name).com” first before realizing that it is possible for them to register the corresponding IDN.
SEO Value / Search Volume:There is a great deal of search volume for non-Latin terms. Buying an affordable IDN with over 500,000 exact GAKT searches a month is very doable. As the
ElliotsBlog/IDNTools contest demonstrated, buying high-search volume handregs is also very possible.
SEO Value / SERP Ranking:Owning an IDN is a huge competitive advantage SEO-wise, leading to mom-and-pop IDN stores being on the first page of Google for major terms.
Six-Figure IDN Resales:It wasn’t long ago that IDN buyers were being laughed at for “wasting” low $x,xxx on IDNs. Those investments have paid dividends for domain resellers as just this past year there was a handful of 5-figure and 6-figure IDN sales. Examples include: 日本.com for $100,000 (“Japan” in Japanese) and рф.com for $60,000 (“RF” in Russian) (see
IDN Tools Sales Chart for more). This is pretty impressive given that IDN awareness is still in its infancy.
IDN Passive Income:Many custom made IDN parking platforms now exist like NameDrive and Wixi.jp. Many affiliate programs also exist for IDNs such as Amazon.co.jp, and Linkshare.jp among hundreds of others. It has never been easier to monetize your IDNs.
How to StartIt is not easy learning how to register top IDNs, but the thousands of members at
IDNForums will be more than happy to show you. If verifying translations is tough for you, we put together the
IDN Newsletter which sells domains with certified native translations. And if you are a bargain hunter, check out our
IDN Droplist. Feel free to shoot me a question or comment at any time — whether you use one of our services or not — and I’d be glad to try and help.
