People around the globe use domain names in a great variety of different languages. Many of those languages make use of special characters (such as the special characters “ä”, “ü” or “ö”) or are based on their own specific character sets (e.g. Cyrillic, Greek or Arabic).

For a long time, the Internet did not take into account this broad variety of languages and characters. The DNS (domain name system) is capable of processing only the standard ASCII character set, without any special characters other than a hyphen.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) build a bridge between the technical limitations of the DNS and the desire of users to express themselves on the internet in their own language and to use domain names in their original familiar notation.

EPAG offers registration of IDN domain names in many different top-level domains. When submitting a domain for registration, simply insert the desired domain with the required special characters, and transformation will happen automatically for most characters. IDN domains have the same pricing as normal domains.

The following overview lists all top-level domains under which IDN registrations are avaiable as well the supported characters or character sets:

Internationalized domain names are domains with characters which are not included in the ASCII character set. If an IDN domain is entered into the address bar of your web browser, a domain with special characters (z. B. köln.de) is automatically converted into an ASCII compliant string (xn--kln-sna.de). Using this punycode, the domain may then be resolved on the internet via the DNS system.

Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions.

 What means “internationalized domain names”?

 What means “Punycode”?

 Can I simply enter an IDN domain name into the address bar of my web browser?

 Can I use IDN domains also for e-mail addresses?

 How can I register domain names with special characters / in different character sets at EPAG?

 May I register IDN domain names in any existing top-level domain?

 Is it possible to have TLDs with umlauts (e. g. .köln) or in other character sets (e. g. Cyrillic)?

 Are IDN domains accepted and commonly used today?

 

Internationalized domain names, or short IDN, denotes the extension of characters which are available for domain names by special characters and character sets.

Transformation of special characters in the standard ASCII character set known to nameservers is done by using a conversion mechanism which translates the domain name into punycode.

Punycode means the notation of an internationalized domain name in a string that contains only the characters recognizable to nameservers of the ASCII character set. The punycode notation always starts with the string “xn--”, followed by the encoded domain name part, for example:

IDN domain: köln.de
Punycode: xn--kln-sna.de

Punycode is defined by RFC document 3492.

Yes, most current browsers do already support automatic conversion of IDN domains into punycode. Some older releases of web browsers, such as Internet Explorer 6.0, require installation of an additional Plug-In for seamless use of IDN domain names.

The following list shows from which release on IDN domains are supported for the most popular web browsers:

• Internet Explorer: from version 7.0; with i-Nav™ Plug-In from version 6.0
• Mozilla Firefox from version 0.6
• Opera: from version 7.11
• Safari: from version 1.2
• Konqueror: from version 3.2
• Netscape Navigator: from version 7.1

Using IDN domains for e-mail purposes is possible only to a very limited extent, because most of the client and server software used for e-mail is not prepared to handle IDN domains. As it is uncertain if an e-mail sent from an IDN domain will be received correctly, it is not recommended to use IDN domains for e-mail communication.

In general, in e-mail addresses, special characters may only be used in the domain part under the TLD of the address (after the @ character), e.g. username@äöü-domain.de. It is not possible to use special characters in the user part of an e-mail address (prior to the @ character), e.g. jürgen@äöü-domain.de.

It’s very simple - just browse to “Domain order” and enter the desired domain name using special characters. If the domain name is available, you may submit your order there. Existing EPAG customers may register IDN domains using the order form in the password protected section of their account.

No. IDN domains are available only if the registry for a specific top-level domain does support IDN. Otherwise, only the standard ASCII character set may be used for domain names.

The table above informs about those top-level domains where registration of IDN names is available through EPAG.

Yes, within the IDN ccTLD Fast-Track Process, ICANN has already approved nine .idn top-level domains and has inserted those into the root zone:

•United Arab Emirates: امارات.   (.xn--mgbaam7a8h)
•Saudi Arabia: السعودية.  (.xn--mgberp4a5d4ar)
•Russian Federation: .рф   (.xn--p1ai)
•Egypt: مصر.   (.xn--wgbh1c)
• China in short marks: 中国   (.xn--fiqs8S)
• China in classical Chinese characters: 中國   (.xn--fiqz9S)
• Taiwan in short marks: 台灣   (.xn--kpry57d)
• Taiwan in classical Taiwanese characters: 台湾   (.xn--kprw13d)
• Hongkong: 香港   (.xn--j6w193g)

Introduction of these .idn top-level domains has started in May 2010 and will go on over the next months.

Prior to the introduction, ICANN had already started with a live test of .idn top-level domains. Here you may find some examples, which are also available at http://пример.испытание.

After the introduction of the first IDN domain in China in the year 2000, there are at present approx. 3 to 4 million IDN domains registered worldwide. This would equal a worldwide market share of 2 percent of all 162 million registered domains today.

In Germany, there are 500.000 IDN domains registered in the .de zone, among others also epäg.de.