Diversity never hurts, however I'm specifically talking about Greek IDN domains versus Greeklish - their phonetic/visual equivalent e.g. kafes.com versus καÏÎÏ.com
Again, specifically for Greek IDN domains, when e.g. ελληνικά.gr has minimal traffic what makes you think ελληνικά.ελ (IDN.IDN) would be in a better position to generate revenue?
If we leave the parking prospect aside, development of ελληνικά.gr at this point in time will most likely get you a decent position in Google gr but it will be somewhat confusing to the casual surfer. Especially if you were to advertise.
When you put ελληνικά.ελ into the mix it changes the whole outlook from the business and surfer perspective. Especially after some time when the surfing public at large becomes aware of the existence of full IDN.IDN
Surfing habits do change over time. Case in point. The first Greek IDN I developed was receiving next-to-nothing traffic parked. We're talking single digits daily on a pure, top generic.
Three years later, January 2011, from search engine stats, 518 searches for the
domain[.]com performed in the S.E.
search bar.
Also, direct access/bookmark for the site is 44.6 % of traffic. It goes without saying that a good chunk of that 44 percent is direct navigation.
Here's traffic stats from last month [January is typically a slow month]
Month Unique visitors Number of visits Pages Hits Bandwidth
Jan 2011 79892 117705 785965 5377944 266.69 GB
So about 30k unique visitors from direct/bookmark traffic. I'll give you only 10 percent from that number is direct navi [which we all know is much higher]. That's 3k visitors last month typing
GreekCharacterIDN.and switching to LatinCom compared to almost zero 3 years ago. Who woulda thunk it.
I'll give you some higher numbers next year when .com will be
.κομ
And, just to be clear, there are searchbar searches with the
GreekKeyword.κομ in the stats, the number is small, 34 last month, but it could be they forgot to switch the script to English.
Also, to be honest, I know I'm bleeding traffic to the Greeklish version or, at least, the main Greeklish version, as I managed to secure the most prominent alternatives of the Greeklish term.
BTW, the site hasn't been updated in almost a year. I can give you last years stats on all the above and the search numbers are 5 times higher.
To conclude, if you invest in Greek IDNs with the sole expectation that you will make a living off parking or hoping to retire by selling a few in a couple of years, you'll be disappointed.
OTOH, if you develop, you stand to earn a few bucks.
To address others' comments,
What is amazing to me is, that some people in this business are often 'shocked', 'amazed' or lose control of their bodily functions when someone earns money from this very business. A change of profession is in order, perhaps?
---------- Post added at 06:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
I wonder if the tax-man knows about these claims? :uhoh:
Can you imagine suddenly having to pay taxes on income of $20k that perhaps was not made, of course the owner could surely appeal, but then again all the authorities would have to do is produce copies of the owners own posts to prove that the money was owed! :lol:
Are you concerned, Sir, that I don't report income to the tax authorities?