IDN Domain Blog about Japanese Domains
I was riding the train when I noticed that video ads for Google for their Gourmet services commercial featured a lot of HotPepper’s IDN URLs in the results. I’ve searched & searched but I’m not able to find that video in the Google Youtube channel. I’ll try to take a video of it.
I guess I’ll have to make a new category for the blog “IDNs in Media” or something like that.
When I was working at a Japanese search marketing company my sempai (senior coworker) told me some great advice about Japanese mentality. He told me that if I were to buy domains think about a mask. He told me think the real world & the internet separately. Think about services that people would want to use privately & not really let anyone know they are using. These types of services will dominate the internet.
At the time of my coworker telling me this the loan rates in Japan were being stabilized so many on the corner loan shops physically closed. He is one of the reasons why I immediately went for some of the top loan related terms. The other categories I thought this would apply for Japan would be gambling, & adult terms. I do have a few premium adult terms but it’s not exactly what I personally have interest in.
Gambling domains were a bit of an interest for me but also even though I have a mahjong table downstairs in my house I’m not really into gambling either. Even if I wasn’t into gambling I still was able to register such keywords as backgammon, blackjack, bingo, craps, & roulette.
I know that my portfolio is mainly Japanese but hopefully readers can use these techniques to apply the methods to markets you want to invest in. Each market is different so there are certainly advantages to thinking a bit different.
IDN Domains at Domain Name Roundtable
IDN Domains will be presented for discussion at the Domain Roundtable this year. It’s really a 360 degree turn from last year when IDN Domains were totally ignored on domain sites, & now it’s regarded as the next domain goldrush.
But what will it bring for us who already hold large portfolios? The Domain Roundtable is not for the domain spectator it’s specifically for those in the field with the cash to put out for high end investments. Will those investors & business’ hire teams to wipe out the rest of the domains we (IDN Forum members) didn’t register yet? Will they just go straight to the source & buy out portfolios of those members who own 500 to 4000 premium Domains in various languages?
I posed this question on the forum & would extend the invitation for you to discuss potential outcomes.
You can read the prewriteup on the Domain Roundtable by Ron Jackson on DNJournal.com
Domain Roundtable Preview on DNJournal
You can Discuss this with us at IDN Forums
IDN Domains at Domain Roundtable
Since I’ve been buying IDN domain names I’ve noticed that Yahoo Japan’s Yahoo auction has a decent amount amount of IDNs for sale already.
This is the only Japanese site I know of currently where users are selling off their Japanese IDN Domains. Since it only cost around $2 a month to get a Yahoo Auction account & you can put up as much items as you would like it’s a small investment for the rather steep prices that’s being asked for the available domains.
Unfortunately I don’t feel the auctioneers are seasoned domainers like their Western counterparts. I’m seeing domains with less than 20,000 searches a month from the Overture Japan tool absolutely no bids with an asking price of 5,000,000 yen (roughly $48,000). I believe the son of my not even yet conceived son will create a new writing system before that baby sells for close to 50 Grand.
It is good that at least Yahoo Japan has added a section for Japanese domainers. Currently I’m still not able to find a Japanese domain parking site, or other place to even sell domains in Japanese.
I’m glad at least that most of the members of the IDN forums because of the site has some potentially high value A quality IDN domain names. Maybe after we sell our XXX,XXX domains off we can buy a few of the high priced ones currently on Yahoo Auction…. or maybe not… Just joking I guess one day I’ll have to test the waters & put up a few really good domain names…
Will IDN Domains prove to be new internet business? There is plenty of skepticism about whether or not IDN Domain names are even a necessity. I think all of us that have been working on internet related projects for at least a few years can remember something that we thought wouldn’t work & just shoved it off as a stupid idea.
My experience was the first time I heard someone telling me about selling web space I thought I was looking at a fool. I assumed everything on the net was free. Boy do I wish I started researching things on the net more back then.
Business always changes as technology advances. It may not affect the U.S. but the Domain Name Market in English is very saturated already. What does this leave for the average Japanese business owner or Japanese brand that actually might only be associated with the native Japanese kanji, hiragana, or katakana name? This seems like an option for season internet savvy business owners but the average company creating their first website would not be looking to spend $500 & up for domain name initially from someone.
The solution would be for Japan to turn to IDNs. After the release of the new Vista & Microsoft IE IDNs will be able to be resolved on PCs so there would be no drawbacks for Japan to use IDN domains. When I first started buying IDNs a few months ago I actually didn’t know that IE couldn’t resolve IDNs because I use a Mac. I’m actually glad I didn’t know because initially it might have thrown me off a bit, but after I started to do research on the matter I was able to land a good IDN Domain portfolio that has a very potential profit in a few years.
Now after the new IE is released & people upgrade this is only phase 2. Actually more like phase 2 or 3 because people have already bought IDNs years ago & now a few of the goods ones are being dropped. The next phase though is the general use of IDNs in Asia. I believe this will start next year. There already are web sites & domains in Japan that promote their site name & even business name as native Japanese characters & .com unfortunately not all of them own the IDN version of their site. When people see that they can type in native Japanese it will catch on. If you think it won’t then I’ll prove to you naturally why it will happen.
1. Native Japanese .com’s would be easier to remember for Japanese
2. The availability of good IDN domain names for the average users will be much more available compared to finding a short English .com
3. Japanese cannot read or pronounce everything in English but they can in Japanese.
4. Current English based domain names do not have any extra value for Japanese terms. Keyword domains like car.com or creditcard.com are good because they are easy to remember & also they can be added value in search engine rankings for keywords. A JAPANESE TERM IN ENGLISH HAS ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA VALUE IN SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS. None at all. Japanese search with native Japanese kanji there is no way to associate it with a domain with English letters, IDNs would create another value in SEO because IDN Domain names can be used in search engine rankings results.
Basically I’m just priming you guys to do your research. After I thought about it. Investing in a small portfolio seemed like the right thing for me. Your portfolio doesn’t have to be Japanese, it could be French, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Greek, or Chinese. I think it will be about 2 years before I can sell off my stock but I’m going to try to hold on to them for 2 or 3 years.