[menog] New Arabic TLD and idea's popularity

[Ahmed Abu-Abed]

Hi Tom,

Country code TLDs have been available since 2010 for 4 Arab countries at least. Unfortunately its not on most peoples priority list for implementing, and I have not noticed any advertising for an Arabic URL over the past couple of years (I live in the MENOG region).

As for CloudFlares IDNs, it would be good to filter out which are using the Arabic alphabet and know how many Arabic IDNs are actually out there. That would require a good understanding of Punycode used to translate an IDN into Latin characters.

Regards,
-Ahmed


From: Tom Paseka 
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2013 7:20 PM
To: Ahmed Abu-Abed 
Cc: mailto:menog at menog.net 
Subject: Re: [menog] New Arabic TLD and idea's popularity

Hi Ahmed, 

I've had a look through CloudFlare's customers and we see thousands of IDN's, but this is nothing compared to what exists in pre-existing romanized domains. 

For a pre-existing company to move to a IDN, or any new domain in general, they have to revamp their presence, re-market to everyone to make sure they visit the correct address. I assume this isn't an easy task. 

I suspect you'll see new starters coming out from the get-go with an IDN, but it'll take a while for the existing content to start adoption.

Cheers,
Tom



On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 1:54 AM, Ahmed Abu-Abed <ahmed at tamkien.com> wrote:

  ICANN is in the news with the new شبكة  TLD, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24637673

  I am yet to see Arabic TLDs widely implemented, although most browsers are ready, even on iOS and Android which I tested with an Arabic URL. Any idea on why is the delay in implementing Arabic URL by content providers (newspapers, etc.) ? People in the region prefer Arabic websites, so I am wondering what’s stopping content providers from having Arabic URLs.

  Also, anyone know if major portals, like Google or Yahoo, have implemented IDNs in any language for their URL ? Something like ياهو.شبكة  (which translates to Yahoo.net , as I cannot find an equivalent to .com as an Arabic TLD).

  Best Regards,
  Ahmed Abu-Abed


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