IDN's & Search Engines

[Seraphim]

How are the three main search engines reacting to IDNs, specifically European IDNs [non Cyrillic]? As we all know, Google, MSN, and Yahoo, offer a significant ranking boost for domain based keywords, is anyone seeing this same rule applying to IDNs?

I can't seem to find any well ranking IDNs within the search engines, does anyone know of any examples I could look at for analyses? If the search engines adapt quickly to accommodate IDN's under the same algorithm rules applied to regular ASCII based domains, then it would be logical to think that they should turn out to be a fairly nice investment [if chosen wisely of course].

What I have been wondering is, how would a domain like café.com fare against cafe.com in the search engines? Would café.com still receive a ranking boost for the ASCII based keyword "cafe", or only for the exact non ASCII based keyword "café"? I would think that the search engine algorithm rules would have to restrict IDN domains from receiving any type of keyword based boost for their ASCII counterparts [if they exist of course], or we'll be seeing lots of domains like applę.com holding the top search rankings. I imagine that these types of obstacles could take years to smooth out. The search engine issue is primarily why I'm still on the fence with IDN's. Hopefully some of you could possibly shed some light on the subject for me.

[domainstosell]

Here is an interesting article on that subject (credit to Jose/Lidador for finding ths and posting it on another forum).

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...-based-on.html

I think the words would have to be real words as well. For example, Cancún is a real word (and the proper spelling), whereas "applę" isn't a real word...

Hope this helps!

[Seraphim]

Thanks for the information domainstosell. If I'm understanding the article correctly, Google does seem to confirm that they will be treating all non ASCII based letters, as if they were their ASCII counterpart. This could open up some interesting trademark disputes, as I'm certain it will be exploited by individuals seeking to gain search rank and traffic by playing off of existing domains [dnfórum.com]. I wonder how they plan to combat this?

[domainstosell]

Thanks for the information domainstosell. If I'm understanding the article correctly, Google does seem to confirm that they will be treating all non ASCII based letters, as if they were their ASCII counterpart. This could open up some interesting trademark disputes, as I'm certain it will be exploited by individuals seeking to gain search rank and traffic by playing off of existing domains [dnfórum.com]. I wonder how they plan to combat this?

I don't think that's the case; I didn't get that take on the article. They say, "Conversely, if a searcher enters a query without using accented characters, but a word in that query could be spelled with them, our algorithms consider web pages with both the accented and non-accented versions of the word."

Like my previous example, Cancún is a real word, spelled correctly with an accent. If you search for Cancun, they will also show results for Cancún.

[wrdekle]

I can think of 2 domains I have in Japanese where they show up in the first page of results on Yahoo (the primary SE for Japan). ブーツ.jp　and 柴犬.jp

[IDNebook.com]

I can think of 2 domains I have in Japanese where they show up in the first page of results on Yahoo (the primary SE for Japan). ブーツ.jp　and 柴犬.jp

Not only are they on the first page congrats you made #! spot for Boots.jp http://search.yahoo.co.jp/search?p=%...-jp&search.x=1
I happen to have a couple idn's on the first page of yahoo aswell this is just so awesome !
Here is one http://暦.jp Calendar.jp

[touchring]

Not only are they on the first page congrats you made #! spot for Boots.jp http://search.yahoo.co.jp/search?p=%...-jp&search.x=1
I happen to have a couple idn's on the first page of yahoo aswell this is just so awesome !
Here is one http://暦.jp Calendar.jp

This really shows how even minimal development can make wonders for idns. With jp ovt of 187950 for ブーツ, i'm sure your ブーツ.jp is quite a spinner!

Ooh, IDNs are dropping, fleee!!

With PPC companies cutting pay out, anyone who is only flipping trafficless .biz, .info should really look into something more viable in the long run. Do your own study to see the logic.

[wrdekle]

This really shows how even minimal development can make wonders for idns. With jp ovt of 187950 for ブーツ, i'm sure your ブーツ.jp is quite a spinner!

Ooh, IDNs are dropping, fleee!!

With PPC companies cutting pay out, anyone who is only flipping trafficless .biz, .info should really look into something more viable in the long run. Do your own study to see the logic.

The revenue on boots.jp alone is between $5 and $15 per day. This is seasonal too, if you look at google trends you can see that autumn/winter is the principle season for boots of all types. And minimal development is absolutely correct. It took me about 4 hours to write and put up the information on that site.

[Bramiozo]

I don't think that's the case; I didn't get that take on the article. They say, "Conversely, if a searcher enters a query without using accented characters, but a word in that query could be spelled with them, our algorithms consider web pages with both the accented and non-accented versions of the word."

Like my previous example, Cancún is a real word, spelled correctly with an accent. If you search for Cancun, they will also show results for Cancún.

Most importantly it says that the accented versions are given priority over the non-accented version depending on user location and the language settings of the search engine, regardless of whether the search is with or without accents.