I have actually seen Arabic URLs posted in public areas in the UAE, yet it is not gaining the marketing advantages it seeks.
There have been discussions within New gTLD applicants on whether to encourage New gTLD registrants (once these new gTLDs are delegated and are generally available) to advertise their online presence using “www” in front of the URL or not; i.e. www.menog.anything vs. menog.anything. For those who might not know, the inventor of the term “www” in front of URLs has admitted that such an addition was a mistake in the first place. Yet, after thorough discussions, those involved have concluded that in order for people to understand what menog.anything is, it is best that “www” is added in front of the URL for advertising purposes. I believe this to be the case for IDNs we well; i.e. some just don’t understand what مثال.اختبار is. My 2 cents. Fahd From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ahmed Abu-Abed Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2013 9:51 PM To: Tom Paseka Cc: menog@menog. net Subject: Re: [menog] New Arabic TLD and idea's popularity 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 <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2013 7:20 PM To: Ahmed Abu-Abed <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: mailto:[email protected] 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 <[email protected]> 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 _______________________________________________ Menog mailing list [email protected] http://lists.menog.org/mailman/listinfo/menog
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