The IDN market is experiencing tremendous growth as countries like China and Korea relax their hold on their citizens and allow them to access the internet. Cheaper computers and technology are letting people who formerly could never dream of taking advantage of cyber-space to surf the net for knowledge, products and fun. IDNs are also easier for people to remember, as they are in their own language. Only about a third of the world’s population speaks English as a native or second language. When you think about it, it’s rather absurd that English dominated the global internet for so long!

Having an International Domain Name makes your site more user-friendly to non-English speaking surfers and consumers as well as allowing you to reach more people with IDN applications regarding FTP and email. With IDN, a person can register their domain name in nearly any character set or language. No longer will any company be restricted to marketing in their own “neighborhood”, but can attract business globally by speaking to customers in their own language. IDNs are now available in over 350 languages and using one can make your product, blog or site of any kind truly global.

If you’re a marketer, you know the importance of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Briefly, the internet teems with “spiders” sent out by search engines that read text and keywords from websites. The spiders then use an algorithm to judge the most relevant results for an information request. A person searching the net using a language other than English is more likely to receive results that include your website if you have an IDN. Another distinct advantage to IDNs is attracting voluntary traffic for products or information without going to additional expense for advertising in different regions of the world. Think of what your bottom line would look like if you suddenly had an addition one thousand people a day looking at your website. If only one percent of those visitors bought your product, you would make ten extra sales per day.

If you’re a blogger that uses banner programs, adsense or other income generating methods, an IDN will make a huge difference in both the traffic going through your site and the people that are patronizing your advertisers. An ordinary little blog that generates a dollar or so per day can quickly turn into a nice source of cash when you use an IDN.

If you’re a consumer or someone searching the internet for information, you know how disappointing it is to see a website listed on a search engine that’s not in your language. Unless you have a translator bookmarked, you’ll have to look for one. Then you will have to copy and paste either the web address or the text of the page. That’s a lot of trouble, especially when you have a school or work deadline. If that website had an IDN you would see not a bunch of gobbledegook but a site that you could read and understand in your own language. The more effort people have to make to accomplish a task, the less likely they are to complete it. That means that without an IDN you won’t have access to most of the world.