This exclusive Q&A is an interview conducted by Gary Males, my IDNTools co-owner, who recently interviewed Nico Zeifang from ParkingCrew.

GM: I am a modest domain portfolio owner, counting less than 1,000 domains, and all IDNs – and I find that my parking revenue easily pays for my renewals. So I thought I would reach out to ParkingCrew, a parking company, to find out if it’s just me.

GM: Thank you Nico for agreeing to share some statistics with us; for those that don’t know you, what position do you hold at ParkingCrew?
NZ: You’re more than welcome. Glad you took the time to interview me. I am one of the founders and currently serve as CEO of Team Internet, the company behind ParkingCrew.

 

 

GM: How many domains do you have under management at ParkingCrew?
NZ: We have just over 9.4 million domains with us.

GM: What percentage of those are IDN?
NZ: Just over 1% are IDN, we have approx 95,000 IDNs using our system

GM: How would you compare average traffic levels of ASCII domains vs IDN ?
NZ: Only taking into account domains that actually had traffic during the timespan measured; an average IDN had 120.6% the traffic of an average ASCII

GM: Why is that do you think?
NZ: We have a lot of really long-tail ASCII domains on our system, while the average IDN seems to be prime keywords.

GM: What is the highest click you have paid out for an IDN?
NZ: $44.63 is the highest and it originated from Japan

GM: What is the highest recorded daily revenue for a single IDN?
NZ: $502.76 and it was a Japanese domain

GM: Can you narrow down the type of domain that generated the above?
NZ: Insurance sector

GM: After dot com, what is the next best performing extension?
NZ: That would be .DE although there is some bias here as our home market is Germany and that is our second strongest market after the US

GM: Thank you again Nico for your time

My advice: I’ve tested many of the Parking providers, and the conclusion I came to is there’s something about ParkingCrew and Japanese language domains in particular that produces exceptional results.  If you already park your Japanese domains there you know what I’m talking about.

Here’s a non-affiliate link

Disclaimer: I do park my Japanese domains with ParkingCrew.  This is not a paid for or sponsored blog post. ParkingCrew has no affiliation with IDNBlog.

In last week’s Snapnames auction, 動画.com (“Video.com” in Japanese) sold for $35,000.

Given that Video.us was once sold for $75,000 according to DNJournal, 動画.com looks to be quite a bargain.

In addition, there are a number of big ticket IDN drops scheduled for Snapnames auctions in September — most notably in the telecom sector. If you missed your opportunity with 動画.com, opportunity knocks once again.

This brief IDNBlog exclusive is with Hiro Hotta, who is speaking on behalf of JPRS, which is the registry governing .jp domain names. He provides an update on the status of IDN.jp aliasing to IDN.日本.

Hiro Hotta, was recently asked about the current likelihood of JPRS obtaining an alias of .日本 for .JP, whether this is still expected, and if so, how and when this will occur. His answer is below:

JPRS was selected as a sole candidate to manage .日本 in October 2010. After that, JPRS has long been waiting for the acknowledgement from the government. It seems that they are still in their internal process in deciding to issue a support (endorsement) letter for JPRS.

Yes, it is still expected, though I believe we (JPRS) have to reconsider the service specification and the market movement since new gTLDs (including IDNs) will be emerging before .日本.

A Verisign spokesperson participated in a Q&A with IDNBlog to address a few burning questions regarding Verisign’s recent gTLD applications. While we understand the confidential nature of Verisign’s future plans, below please find questions and answers on four key new gTLD topics.

Q: It surprised some that Verisign applied for קוֹם. (punycode: xn--hdb9cza1b) but not קום. (punycode: xn--9dbq2a). As קום and קוֹם are variants will Verisign eventually obtain the right to use both?

A: We are currently in discussions with ICANN on how to handle the administrative error that resulted in the inclusion of a variant character in the VeriSign Sàrl application in our Hebrew IDN transliteration of .com.

Q: If Verisign obtains the transliterations of .COM that it applied for, how will they be handled? Would priority be given to current IDN.com owners to unlock IDN.com-in-IDN as was previously reported?

A: It would be premature to discuss our plans surrounding the new gTLDs and IDNs we applied for. We will discuss future plans for the TLDs once applications are approved.

Q: How did Verisign decide what language .NET transliterations to apply for?

A: Through extensive research Verisign identified and then applied for those .net transliterated strings which make the most sense to end users in scripts where demand for internationalized domains are high.

Q: Will Verisign consider contesting CINIC’s application for 公司 (“Company” in Chinese) given the similarity to .COM?

A: While it’s premature to discuss any specific plans to challenge applications submitted, we are evaluating the list of new gTLD applications as published by ICANN to determine whether or not they raise any concerns. Verisign is committed to ensuring that the .com and .net experience for users remains coherent and uniform, regardless of script, language, or location on the planet.

Verisign applied for 12 IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) transliterations of .COM, but it was Verisign’s Hebrew application that stood out.

Verisign applied for: קוֹם. (punycode: xn--hdb9cza1b).
Some natives hoped for a Verisign application for: קום. (punycode: xn--9dbq2a).

While both קוֹם and קום are correct Hebrew transliterations of “.COM”, Verisign’s application includes a dot (a Hebrew vowel) over the middle letter (a “vav”).

On the Internet, it is common for Hebrew words to be written without Hebrew vowels (known as nikudot). Verisign applied for only one of two variants. Verisign’s string includes a vowel. However, it is unclear whether Verisign will obtain the rights to קום (the commonly used voweless string) as well, and where the traffic will go if someone types in (Site).קום instead of (Site).קוֹם.

Amazon continued to solidify its forward thinking reputation with a significant portion of its new gTLD applications devoted to IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names). At $185,000 for each application alone, plus maintenance costs this represents a substantial investment. It is clear that Amazon expects a great deal of IDN demand now that IDN.IDNs are available.

Among Amazon’s notable IDN gTLD applications are:

家電 / Consumer Electronics / Japanese

通販 / Mail Order / Japanese

食品 / Food Products / Chinese

アマゾン / Amazon /Japanese

クラウド / Cloud / Japanese

ストア / Store / Japanese

セール / Sale / Japanese

ファッション / Fashion / Japanese

ポイント / Point / Japanese

書籍 / Book(s) / Chinese

A tip for generic domain investors, there is still plenty of opportunity left in the IDN space but you can bet that window will be closing fast. If you are interested in learning more about investing in IDNs you can sign up for our free newsletter at IDNNewsletter.

Verisign has applied for the following transliterations of .COM:

คอม / xn--42c2d9a, Transliteration of dot com (Thai)
コム / xn--tckwe, Transliteration of dot com (Japanese)
קוֹם / xn--hdb9cza1b, Transliteration of dot com (Hebrew)
كوم / xn--fhbei, Transliteration of dot com (Arabic)
点看 / xn--3pxu8k,Transliteration of dot com (Simplified Chinese)
點看/ xn--c1yn36f, Transliteration of dot com (Traditional Chinese)
ком / xn--j1aef, Transliteration of dot com (Cyrillic/Russian)
कॉम / xn--11b4c3d, Transliteration of dot com, (Hindi)
닷컴/ xn--mk1bu44c, Transliteration of dot com (Hangul/Korean)

Verisign has also applied for the following transliterations of .NET:

नेट /xn--c2br7g,Transliteration of dot net (Hindi)
大拿 / xn--pssy2u,Transliteration of dot net (Simplified Chinese)
닷넷 / xn--t60b56a,Transliteration of dot net (Hangul/Korean)

Verisign also released a press release on Marketwatch here.

An IDNForums celebration is in full swing here. The patience of many long term generic IDN investors has been rewarded via these transliteration applications, which will unlock tremendous value for IDNs, as IDN.com will also be accessible as IDN.com-in-IDN.

You might be surprised by this month’s leading keyword on Snapnames’ most searched keyword list. It is “xn--”, which is used as the beginning of any punycode equivalent of an IDN. For instance мрамор.com (Marble.com in Russian) has a punycode equivalent of xn--80axbihd.com. Either the IDN (мрамор.com) or the punycode (xn--80axbihd.com) will navigate to the same site.

If someone is searching for IDNs that are in auction, it is remarkably efficient to go to Snapnames under Advanced Search and to search for domains containing “xn--”. This will restrict the search to IDNs only, and an interested IDN buyer can then further limit his/her search by sorting the names by active bids.

This is yet another sign of increased IDN buying activity. As Snapnames sales are not typically recorded in the weekly DNJournal sales summary — and high priced IDNs are typically sold on Snapnames rather than in public end-user sales (given the early-stage nature of IDNs and the lack of end-user awareness) — it is critical to be aware of the increased competitiveness in aftermarket bidding. As a personal anecdote, I witnessed this increased interest firsthand as I bid on (and won) an IDN this month in the $xx,xxx range after a protracted bidding war against several highly motivated bidders.

Returning to the lede, and in case you were curious, following “xn--” in Snapnames’ most searched keywords list are the usual suspects, which include “hotel”, realestate” and “3d”.

PROMO OF THE MONTH: Our friends at .Asia announced a series of promos which include a 7-inch android tablet free with a 10-year .Asia registration. Further details can be found at freeb.asia.

If you are asking what happened in the IDN world recently in terms of progress, please look at the following sales:

-Блог.com (Blog.com in Russian) sold for $3,435.37 dollars. (Link)

-山东.com (Shandong.com in Chinese) is currently in auction at €6,200 (Link)

- Москва.com (Moscow.com in Russian) was verified as selling for $216,000 (Link)

In addition, we relaunched our IDNTools.com site as a fixed price marketplace (see here) this month. Check it out if you haven’t yet.

And we had the opportunity to talk about IDN opportunities on ElliotsBlog here.

If you are wondering whether this month is an outlier, or whether IDNs are in a rapid growth phase, please see a summary of 2011 below as a refresher:

*A very successful Russian IDN.RF (.РФ) launch with over 900,000 registrations in year one.

*More reported parking revenue (with specific names as examples) here.

*More examples of profitable developed IDN sites here.

*A spike in reported IDN sales prices here.

*A gTLD launch around the corner with many reported IDN applications, and assurances from Verisign that they intend to pursue aliasing of IDN.com to IDN.com-in-IDN per DNW here.

*An IDN ccTLD Fast Track program, which exposed many native communities to the existence and value of IDNs.

Opportunities abound in our new fixed price IDNTools.com marketplace that was just launched. Many top 50 terms, such as “Flowers, Doctors, Hotels, Games” are listed at historically low fixed prices. Here’s why you should take a serious look at investing in IDNs from the newly launched marketplace:

*Quality. Many listed domains are category leaders with jaw-dropping Google Adwords Keyword Tool stats. TIP: Just make sure to change the language and location search settings to “All” when measuring IDN statistics using GAKT.

*Pricing. The prices are similar to what one would be paying in the mid-1990s for category killer English domains. Read here about Scott Day’s $3,000 investment in Watermelon.com in 1996, and how you can turn back the clock and replicate this strategy with foreign language domains, which are in an early growth stage but have the same type-in and SEO value as English domains.

*Growth. IDN sales continue to increase see here and here for IDN sales data.

*Type-In Success. The reason some started investing in IDNs later than most was confusion over how IDNs actually get typed in. Foreign keyboards make it easy and natural to toggle between foreign characters and .COM, which leads to tremendous type-in traffic. There is also likely to be “aliasing” where the owner of com.שמן will automatically own קום.שמן.

*Development Success. IDN development success has also been well documented with statistics and earnings stats been made publicly available.


Never say you were too late for the opportunity to invest in domains because here it is.

IDNTools.com still includes a set of free tools for the serious domain investor, such as the leading punycode converter and sales statistics, but we expect to grow the fixed price marketplace component of the site, which will add greater liquidity and accessibility to the IDN market.