IDN Myths
Let’s examine the biggest general myths about IDN Domains.
This only relates to the Japanese market.
1. IDN Domains are a security risk because of phishing.
I’ve heard more people write this line without ever saying how it would apply to all markets. I think most of them don’t even realize what it means. It’s actually easier for people to get duped because any domain is not in their native language. Also there is less chance of phishing to even occur if the domain is just in Japanese. You could have mixed languages in dot com registrations but you can’t now. & with jp registrations you can only register Japanese or English characters.
2. If the person goes overseas they won’t be able to access their own company site.
First I’ll ask “Did you ever hear of a laptop?” If a Japanese person goes overseas & can’t type in Japanese for a URL how do you expect them to answer emails? Not in English. Also think about the target market for a company with a Japanese IDN Domain. Do you really think it’s to show overseas investors? Or is it to launch campaigns for the average Japanese consumer?
3. Everyone in the world is used to using English
This is a huge stereotype. I think this misconception just makes us Americans assume everyone in the world wants to suffer through trying to learn English just to communicate to us. There is a difference between English being cool to look at & something being functional. A domain should be functional for the company. Bringing conversions for it’s average target user.
4. Overseas Traffic is worthless.
This is all relative. Again you have to think of conversions.
If I have an EnglishJobeSite.com & the site is in English with English based ads for jobs in the U.S. You can bet that traffic to the site from Asia will not not bring conversions.
Now think about it in the reverse.
A Japanese career related IDN Domain. 転職情報.jp (Job/Employment Info)
The domain is in Japanese. The ads will be in Japanese. The conversions for this domain will be on target. Japanese looking for jobs.
If you go to the OVT bid tool for Japan
http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/?Keywords=&mkt=jp
You’ll se there are 102 Advertisers competing for this keyword.
The top 10 ranging from ¥604($5.10) to ¥992 ($8.39)
So in other words US traffic is actually worthless for Japan so it’s all relative.
5. Japanese characters can kanji can have more than one pronunciation.
Doesn’t this apply to English also? There’s homonyms like brake & break, stake & steak, Don & Dawn, Eight & Ate. No language is any different but do you really think still using a foreign language is better?
6. A Japanese person’s name can be written with different kanji characters.
This is true but do you see people’s personal names on DNJournal’s Top List weekly? Also it’s no different when a Japanese person is calling a service to order something over the phone & has to say what the kanji is. That’s why on applications in Japan they have your name & furigana (The way it is pronounced in hiragana). The main reason we invested in IDN domains is to get generic commercial terms. If you have a radio ad for your restaurant & sports bar, & you say your URL is www.steak.com & your users type in stake.com, the problem is your users, not your domain. A Japanese person will always be able to write in the write Japanese characters best.
7. Writing the dot com at the end of an IDN is hard for Japanese.
Completely untrue guys. You actually don’t need to do much to switch over from English character set. It’s one button that is common for Japanese. Also they don’t even need to switch over when writing a dot jp. they can write without changing the encode.
8. What about trademarks?
Fact is Japanese usually have their trademarks in Japanese. Most companies have their name in Japanese because it’s … well natural.