IDN domains in Ireland (.ie)

> I wonder does the IEDR domain registry have any plans to support IDN
> names in Ireland?

IEDR are technically in a position to offer IDN domain registrations
already.  Widespread deployment would require policy development and
some minor systems development work.  This work is not scheduled into
our short term work plans.

Demand for IDN domains in Ireland has been very very low thus far. 
Accordingly, this level of demand has been reflected in our
prioritisation of the IDN work.
--

Kind regards

______________________________________________
Billy Glynn
Head of Application Support and Development
Technical Services
IE Domain Registry Ltd

Tel:  +353 (0)1 2365404
Mobile: +353 (0)87 9188317
Email:  billy.glynn@domainregistry.ie
Web:    http://iedr.ie

españa.es

I couldn't believe my luck for a moment, I thought españa.es was still available.

I Checked the IDN, xn--espaa-rta.es, and saw no DNS information, so went to Eurodns,
but got this link

"Whois information for this extension is only available at the registry's website. Use the following link to open the registry's website.

Take me to the registry's website"

then

xn--espaa-rta.es	Dominio no permitido	Seleccionar agente registrador	Consultar normativa

on Red.es.

So close :)

Free domain names, .org.ua and .pp.ua

The Ukrainian NIC are giving away .pp.ua domain names for free, they also say they are giving away .org.ua, but I wasn't able to figure out how to get one.

.com.ua costs buttons at 4.75 USD, but still free is always better :)

(http://nic.ua/eng/index.html)

DNS hosting for .su (Soviet Union) IDN domains

I've just put the first IDN domain on FreeNameServers.co.uk, a mere 600 Rubles (£12) from NIC.RU/EN.

The domain is бесплатныесмс.su, ("Besplatnye SMS") which resolves via puny code to http://www.xn--80abmb2aifnrfbh2j.su/ - The .su TLD actually refers to the Soviet Union, which is a TLD that ICANN is trying to revoke at the moment, at the behest of the Russian NIC.

The official TLD of Russia is .ru, but Google still recognises .su as a official domain name, and my personal feeling that trying to uproot 17 Million websites (search site:.su in Google), would be something that the Russian NIC wouldn't do lightly.

Furthermore, NIC.ru is only selling IDN domains for .su, not .ru. Which is a bit wierd.

The importance of local country domain names

The first domain I ever bought was webtropy.com back in 2001, eight years ago. I bought it because the name was unusual, a combination of "web", and "entropy",

information: (communication theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome; "the signal contained thousands of bits of information"

If I could go back eight years, and just tell myself, that nobody cares if you think of a funky name, with fancy words. Unless you've got the branding budget of Coca-Cola, nobody gives a sh*t.

Every domain I buy today, and that's one a month, at least, is something that means something. The domain *must* match the search term you're targeting. The best example of this, is Mesothelioma.ie. It matches the highest paying keyword in the world, and hit #1 spot in Google.ie in 24 hours. - It's dropped a little since, but it's still ranking well.

This is certainly an unfair advantage in Google. I would concur with anybody who could pick out 10 much more deserving websites for that position, but, If you know how to play the domain game in Google, it's their loss.

So, going back to the topic of the post. I've understood the importance of top level country domain names, and I've got hard figures to back up what I'm saying here, it's not a hunch, not a guess, it's fact.

If you sell something that is only relevant for one country, i.e. Wedding car hire in England, then there is very very little chance that someone from south africa will care about your site, so you should not target them, or even delude yourself into thinking you *might* make a sale outside of England. Forget it, it won't happen, be honest. Therefore, DO NOT BUY WeddingCarHire.com, instead by WeddingCarHire.co.uk. you will get a boost in Google.co.uk, that is worth hundreds of pounds in online advertising.

The next business model is one that goes international well, such as, International Mobile Phone Sim cards. So therefore, instead of buying InternationalSimCards.com, which is (a) giving you no advantage in the UK / US (b) Alienating all non-english speakers. You should buy InternationalSimCards.co.uk, AND simKarteWeltweit.de, .ch, .at, etc.,

Sure, this means extra cost in Domain name registration fees, dilution of your brand, translation fees, but believe me, it will be worth it.

Even if the top level domain of a country is not available, then a second level domain is ok too. They are normally cheaper, less regulated, and give the same boost in google. Ie, a .co.cz is much easier to get than a .cz, same for .sk and .eu.sk. same for .co.pt and pt. The list goes on.

Some sample boosts in Google due to getting a top level domain from the target-contry:
.com -> .co.cz - 70 Google.cz positions up in one month.
.com -> .ie - 681 Google.ie positions up in one month.

You can get the same effect with online advertising, but, this approach is much cheaper, and in my mind, easier.

That's my thoughts on SEO this Easter weekend.

DNS Setup of an IDN domain

IDN domains allow non-latin letters to be present in domain names. For example the hungarian word "Cheap" should be spelt as "olcsó" which cannot be resolved with standard DNS due to the accented "ó".

For this purpose, the encoding "punycode" was developed, a punycode converter can be found at http://mct.verisign-grs.com/index.shtml

A sample conversion would be xn--olcs-tqa.hu for olcsó.hu

On a seperate note, Hungarian domains have a unusual requirement, postmaster@.hu must exist. The DNS check at the Hungary NIC has a good check which shows this:

http://www.domain.hu/domain/English/regcheck/

Technical check



Results of the domain check

Congratulations!, the domain xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu is configured correctly.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact hostmaster@ns.nic.hu.

Output of the check procedure:
..............................................................................
M-GREET -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] Domi version 20090324
M-NADD -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] NS addr: 86.xxx.xxx.194
M-PNAM -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] primary NS name: ns1.xxx.net
M-PADD -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] primary NS addr: 86.xxx.xxx.194
M-PGET -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] getting domain from NS 86.xxx.xxx.194 ...
M-PRZO -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] cannot download domain from 86.xxx.xxx.194
M-PARI -W- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] NS records inconsistent with parent !!!
M-ROK -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] SOA parameters comply with RIPE
M-NS -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] A records for DNS servers:
addr of NS ns1.xxx.net.: 86.xxx.xxx.194
addr of NS ns2.xxx.net.: 86.xxx.xxx.196
M-SOA -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] A record for SOA mail host xxx.ie:
addr of MX fallback002.hosting-concepts.nl.: 80.95.170.17
addr of MX fallback001.hosting-concepts.nl.: 87.233.136.38
addr of MX mail.xxx.ie.: 65.182.102.78
M-MX -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] A records for MX records:
addr of MX mail.xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu.: 86.xxx.xxx.201
M-PTR -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] getting traceroute info to 86.xxx.xxx.194... done
M-NSC -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] checking NS records ...
M-SGET -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] getting data from 86.xxx.xxx.196 ns2.xxx.net ...
M-STR -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] getting traceroute info to ns2.xxx.net... done
M-TRL -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] traceroute lengths differ 9 8
M-TRC -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] traceroutes differ (9): 86.xxx.xxx.194
M-PMAI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] checking postmaster e-mail at mail.xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu, 86.xxx.xxx.201 ...
M-VOUT -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] address verification: Requested mail action okay, completed
M-MXOK -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] MX server okay
M-SMAI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] checking SOA mail xxx@xxx.ie at 80.95.170.17
M-VRRT -W- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] retrying verify 1
M-VOUT -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] address verification: Deferred: Connection closed
M-SOAMI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] SOA mail address check failed at MX, (80.95.170.17)
M-SMAI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] checking SOA mail xxx@xxx.ie at 87.233.136.38
M-VRRT -W- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] retrying verify 1
M-VOUT -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] address verification: 213.239.177.111 could not deliver to 213.239.177.111
User unknown
M-SOAMI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] SOA mail address check failed at MX, (87.233.136.38)
M-SMAI -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] checking SOA mail xxx@xxx.ie at 65.182.102.78
M-VOUT -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] address verification: 2.1.5 Ok
M-MXOK -I- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] MX server okay
M-OK -S- [xn--xxx-3hb3k88c.hu] All's well............ that ends well.................

Blogspot DNS setup without CNAME

I recently looked at hosting one of my blogspot / blogger domains on my own domain name,
i.e. www.mesothelioma.ie

According to instructions, you are meant to point the CNAME to ghs.google.com, however, I found the same effect if you just point the domain to 74.125.77.121. This may be bypassing some of google's load balancing systems, but... It works.

.travel top level domain

I came accross a domain today with a .travel top level domain. I was surprised to know it was coming into common useage.

In order to register a .travel domain name, you need to be authenticated by ABTA or one of the organisations listed at travel.travel

The TLD DNS service is backed by UltraDNS as follows:

travel nameserver = tld6.ultradns.co.uk
travel nameserver = TLD5.ULTRADNS.INFO
travel nameserver = tld4.ultradns.org
travel nameserver = tld3.ultradns.org
travel nameserver = tld2.ultradns.net
travel nameserver = tld1.ultradns.net
travel nameserver = B.GTLD.travel
travel nameserver = A.GTLD.travel