Digishire™ - Polish IDN Domain Pairing

For those of you just getting aquatinted the term IDN, it's an acronym for internationalized domain name, which of course is a domain name that contains characters outside of the English based ASCII script. To give you an example of what I'm referring to specifically, take a look at the Polish IDN domain michałowo.com. Obviously you can see that it contains a ł character from the Polish alphabet, thus making it a non ASCII script IDN domain. Due to the fact that the internet was setup using the ASCII script, all IDN domains also have an ASCII compatible counterpart, which is called a punycode. The punycode for michałowo.com is xn--michaowo-bpb.com, notice how the later format is ASCII compatible. If you attempt to access both of the domain formats in your internet browser, then you'll notice that they will forward you to the same destination. That in a nutshell is the world of IDN, which I will explore more in depth later.

The subject that I want to focus on for this article, is IDN pairing, or more specifically Polish IDN pairing. The best way to explain what IDN pairing is, would be to show you an example. I own the domain michalowo.com, which if you're familiar with the city name, you'll notice that the form I just showed you is what I like to call an IDN to ASCII convert. In this case the Polish ł letter which is contained in the official city name spelling, has been converted to the ASCII letter l, which also happens to be contained in the Latin based Polish alphabet. IDN to ASCII converted text like this is used often by Poles, particularly when they are confronted with a situation where ASCII is the required script. In light of this common occurrence, I also own michałowo.com, the actual correct Polish spelling of the city name. By owning both domains michalowo.com and michałowo.com, I am practicing what I like to call Polish IDN pairing.

Now that you are familiar with what an IDN is, and what Polish IDN pairing is, let me explain a little bit about the character conversion itself. Polish, which is spoken by roughly 40 million people around the world, is a fairly small stand alone language group. Polish speakers, most of which reside in the heart of Europe, are often confronted with other slightly different Latin based alphabets, examples of those languages being German, French, English, Czech, Swedish, Spanish, and many others. This frequent exposure to other slightly varying Latin based alphabets, has created the need for a secondary default accent neutral Polish alphabet, which can then be used in an internationalized Latin based context. This phenomenon isn't exclusive to Polish obviously, many of the other Latin based alphabets practice this as well. It's also not restricted to the internet, as internationalized or accent neutral Latin alphabets have been converted for centuries.

Having established the fact that a secondary Polish accent neutral alphabet is an age old standard, I will now explain the reasons behind why IDN domain pairing is so important. Many Poles when faced with an international setting, will convert their own first and last names to an accent neutral alphabet, should they contain any unique Polish characters. This courtesy helps non Polish speakers with pronunciation, who are likely to be unfamiliar with the pronunciation associated with these Polish characters. This is usually done by Poles on a whim, and as a second nature. Applying this second natured habit to an ASCII based internet setting, you get a situation where many Poles will type in michalowo.com instead of michałowo.com, with it being a split percentage of one over the other. Hence if you only own one of the domains, as much as 20% to 80% of your domain based traffic is going to bleed off to the other domain, which is why you need to own both.

There is not a set rule that governs the percentage of Poles that will type michalowo.com into their browser, as opposed to michałowo.com. In my own personal experience, 80% to 90% will visit a domain by typing in the ASCII compatible michalowo.com, with the other 10% to 20% entering in through the IDN michałowo.com. This figure will not only wildly vary between domain pairs themselves, but it will likely also vary depending on what subject matter your domain relates to. In other words, because the issue is habit driven, it's impossible to predict where the split figures will fall, and even if they'll stay consistent over the long term. By owning both the IDN and ASCII michalowo.com and michałowo.com, you ensure that all of the users searching for your address, will find the web property which you own. There are other TLD or .com to .pl traffic bleed issues that could also come into play in this situation, but I will go into that in another article.

While I encourage everyone to make sure that you own both the Polish ASCII convert and it's IDN counterpart, I would say that in almost all cases the stand alone Polish ASCII convert domain is going to have the stronger direct navigational traffic pull. In fact, as internet browsing habits stand today, Polish IDN domains should be treated strictly as a secondary support address for the Polish ASCII convert domain. Polish IDN domains are seldom developed, so if you were to develop an IDN stand alone, and not own the ASCII convert of that domain, then I wouldn't be surprised to know that you are losing up to 80% or 90% of your traffic to the non Polish alphabet script version. Obviously you can own a Polish IDN that will get a large amount of direct navigational traffic making it profitable to hold, but if you plan to develop it or sell the domain to a web developer, then it is an absolute must that you also own the ASCII convert version as well.