You might have heard that people in other countries like to type, search, and create content in their native languages.  Investing in Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) is a way to capitalize on that trend, and for anyone who wants to diversify a domain portfolio, buying a number of IDNs is a must.

I am not fluent in any foreign languages, (though I come close with Hebrew).  How can I register IDNs in large countries such as China, which has more people than any other country in the world?  Is it a problem than I am not a native speaker and that I do not have Chinese characters on my keyboard?

It is actually fairly simple.  All you need is a good, free online dictionary and a punycode converter.

Step 1: Translation
If you use a reliable foreign dictionary and translate “Liyang”, the Chinese city,  from English to Chinese you will get 溧阳.com

Step 2: Punycode Conversion
Then if you want to register this name, many registrars require you to register it using the punycode representation of these characters.  If you copy and paste 溧阳.com into the IDNTools punycode converter, you can just press the convert button and you will get the punycode representation of this word xn--y9wq75f.com.

Step 3: Registration
Then go register xn--y9wq75f.com.  As a result, if someone types in 溧阳.com into a browser, you would own that page and can develop it like any other.  Even better is that IDN keywords are not as competitive so if one were to do SEO, you would be in a great position for the valuable keyword “溧阳“.

Step 4: Bulk Registration
Now that you understand the basics, you can still hand register some great IDNs, and the best way to check for availability is in bulk.  Pull together a few hundred English keywords.  Translate. Punycode convert.  And availability check.

Caveats
A few hurdles still exist, though they can be leapt over.  First, you are bound to make some translation mistakes as some dictionaries aren’t always accurate.  We’ll show you in the next post how to use the best dictionaries, and when to use natives to minimize mistakes.  We’ll also explain that the question “why would anyone register a foreign name, then dot an English extension?” is resolved by .com being aliased to foreign extensions.

Next post: Translating Domain Names

Aaron Krawitz of IDNBlog and Gary Males of IDNDemystified, are guest authors of this IDN series on ElliotsBlog.  Aaron and Gary co-own  IDNDroplist, IDNTools and IDNNewsletter.

In the day and age where most companies and people blame others when they forget to renew a domain name (as is what appears to have possibly happened in Morehead, Kentucky), a Canadian ski club appears to have let its domain name expire and didn’t blame anyone else for the error. Unfortunately for Whaleback Nordic Ski Club, their domain name, Whaleback.ca, was acquired by a company  selling a sex toy.

As of November 29, 2009, the domain name was registered to a company called “Stag Lodge,” and the domain name was set to expire on December 1, 2009. On January 6, 2010, the domain name was registered to a different company. In an article found in The Western Star, the site’s webmaster, Jack Lamond, doesn’t go pointing fingers at others.

“Once you lose your Internet (domain) name, it belongs to someone else. That’s why you pay a domain name fee,” Lamond said.

It’s a shame the person in charge of domain registrations did not renew the domain name. As I always advise, ensure your credit cards on file are up to date, your domain names are set to auto-renew, and you check your emails from your registrar.

It appears that Whaleback Nordic Ski Club isn’t the only organization whose website was impacted by not renewing the domain name. A look at a cached page on the former Whaleback.ca website shows a link to a Stag Lodge Outfitters (StagLodge.ca), and that website now also has adult content.

That particular domain name was registered to the same contact as the Whaleback.ca website as well. Let’s hope he wasn’t responsible for any childrens’ websites or other important domain names.