Are you already localizing your website content into other languages? Consider doing the same to the website URL. Consider acquiring ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) like “.de” and “.es” for your multilingual website. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has recently approved non-Latin ccTLDs. Prior to this approval, only a partial IDN (internationalized domain name) was possible. Now, as more IDNs in non-Latin scripts become available, it is possible to localize the entire URL.
Complete Internationalized Domain Names
The following example shows how a domain name in Taiwan can be written partially or completely localized/internationalized:
| None | e-learning.com |
| Partial | e-learning.tw |
| Partial | 電子學習.com |
| Partial | 電子學習.tw |
| Partial | e-learning.台灣 |
| Full | 電子學習.台灣 |
Registering ccTLDs
Some ccTLDs have strict requirements for registration, such as requiring companies to have a physical presence in the country represented by the TLD. Visit the IANA (Internet Assigned Number Authority) website to see where to register each ccTLD. Registering multiple ccTLDs can become costly and time consuming, and it is not right for every company.
Internationalized Domain Names Video
View the following ICANN video for additional information on the importance of IDNs.
Additional Info on Internationalized Domain Names
