Jeff Behrendt of DomainBits.com has written an in-depth guide about IDNs. Excerpt follows:
How does becoming wealthier than Frank Schilling sound? Schilling, the most successful individual domainer in the world, has a portfolio of about 300,000 names, estimated revenue of $20 million dollars per year, and has received several 9-figures offers for his portfolio. Yet according to long-time IDN investor and IDN expert David Wrixon, “[t]here are IDN investors out there that will make Frank Schilling look like an amateur.”
Speaking of aftermarket value, I do not think IDNs will overtake English ASCII .com domains anytime soon, so I wouldn’t agree with the statement above. However, perhaps I am not better in predicting the future than your favorite weather man, and local web surfing is on the rise, so I do believe that internationalized domain names will see a great appreciation in value over the next years. On the other hand, IDNs are still very speculative and a risky investment. They haven’t performed very well traffic-wise, either. After all, IDNs are a risky long-term investment, in my opinion. As most risky investments they might give a good return in the end.
Full article: How to Get Started with IDNs
This statement shot out at me: “They haven’t performed very well traffic-wise, either.”
Just wondering if you have any IDNs?
**ANSWER**
Yes, I have some IDNs. Not many overall, most of them are German keyword domains.
Is the traffic anything worth mentioning? I’ve always been curious about German IDNs since they have been selling for high prices.
**ANSWER**
Not in my case, unfortunately. But I’m an old-fashioned English DotCom buyer and I wouldn’t count my handful of IDNs as top domains, so others might have seen better results. I asked a fellow German domainer, who owns some high-value German IDNs, for his opinion. He may post a comment here.
Hello Everybody,
Dominik asked me whether I could comment on the traffic issues for German IDN’s as I was responsible for the purchase of two of the more well-publicized (through dnjournal) purchases of German Keyword IDN Domain names. Let me comment on Ernährung.de first which I bought more than a year ago. Ernährung is the proper German spelling for nutrition and I excpect (although it is hard to say) to get about the same amount as the non-IDN version (although the IDN version is gaining ground and the non-IDN version should be loosing ground as people get more used to being able to use the natural spelling - which is IDN - in their Domain names). Traffic numbers (Unique visitors) by month since the purchase were:
October 2006 351
November 2006 404
December 2006 349
January 2007 729
February 2007 587
March 2007 727
April 2007 569
May 2007 776
June 2007 753
July 2007 606
August 2007 574
September 2007 742
October 2007 870
November 2007 694
December 2007 467
January 2008 901
So as you can see, traffic is clearly on the rise. Overall, I am very very happy with this investment. I have received considerably higher offers on this name already and would put it in the Euro xxx xxx value range at the moment.
The other purchase published in DnJournal.com was Bücher.com (German for Books). This is a more tricky one to comment on as it has not been constantly parked but rather used with different affiliate programs as well as leased out on a flat fee in the past. The name is getting about 300 - 500 unique visitors a month. It is another investment I am very happy with.
To conclude this: In languages, where the IDN spelling is the natural spelling and the IDN characters are readily accessible on the keyboard (as is the case in Germany) I would prefer to own the IDN version over the non IDN version any time.
Hope this helps Dominik, keep up the great blog!
Nico
**ANSWER**
Thank you very much for your detailed comment and insights, Nico!
Very nice. So what are your opinions on Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, etc. ?
Hey Sammy,
hard to say as I am not a native speaker in these countries. Given my comment above I would say they make sense, if:
-the name is naturally spelled as an IDN in this language
-the characters are easily available on the keyboard and used
Therefore, the IDN’s that would make sense in these languages should already be getting Type-In Traffic in my opinion.
Hope that helps!
Nico