evidence of Japanese type-in

[rhys]

The key question with regards to Japanese IDNs are whether or not type-in traffic will ever emerge. Given that the Japanese don't have a type-in culture and that all navigation today is done through Search Engines. Sure, we see type-ins in the ascii world but no one has had a good argument as to whether type-in is a specific cultural development or is an inherent behavior when one mixes any human being with the right combo of internet tools (capable browsers, etc). As a student of anthropology, I have placed my bets on the latter hypothesis but knowing that there is great uncertainty. (I know many of you are adamant that type-in traffic will develop naturally but sadly wishing it or being invested in that hypothesis does not make it more true).

Well today, I had my first substantial evidence that Japanese are sometimes indeed willing to type in. The circumstances are that over the weekend I have a very short domain which refers to an important Japanese bureau I moved from parking to hosting and added google analytics. I have only gotten five visits in the last 2 days - analytics says that the traffic came from "direct" navigation not a search engine. Also the browser analysis says that all 5 of them came from an IDN compatible browser that is 4 safari and 1 firefox. Further all the traffic came from within Japan.

I see why people would type this in - because they think they are navigating to the website of the Japanese bureau (it is a .com and the .jp is reserved). But what is really important is that this looks like it is ACTUAL TYPE-IN. Which means that even if they don't have the means yet to do this the Japanese will indeed probably type-in to some extent once IE7 gets penetration and advertising kicks in.

[markits]

Thanks for sharing, rhys!

[rhys]

This is by the way, the geographical distribution
1. Osaka 1
2. Tochigi 1
3. Hiroshima 1
4. Gifu 1
5. Hokkaido 1

[markits]

To consolidate rhys findings, here is my story in testing out whether Japanese is typing in or not.

I regged an ascii dot jp few months ago that is showing 56 ovt with ext. The domain is not indexed in any search engines I am aware of, not even a single link existed in the net, and yet it gets daily 35 uniques and a high ctr at ND.

[Rubber Duck]

It may be too early to declare victory as the type-in could just be domainers at this stage.

Type in is definitely occurring in Arabic and Russian.

I believe that the lack of type is simply explained by a lack of functionality of the browser. If it won't work, then why attempt to do it, and even if you do it, that attempt will never be statistically recorded.

I am not someone that navigates by type-in in the sense that we are looking for, but if you want to go to a URL and you have that URL in front of you if it is not in the form of a hyperlink, how the the hell else are you going to get there. Are you always going to bung it into Search in the hope that you can find the relevant bit on the first page, or will you use the Internet Addresses in the way that it was originally intended?

These people were frankly left with some pretty poor options in terms of navigation but despite everything they manage to function fairly effectively on the whole. People who are that adaptable are not going to be defeated by the challenge of typing their own language into the address bar!

Originally Posted by rhys

The key question with regards to Japanese IDNs are whether or not type-in traffic will ever emerge. Given that the Japanese don't have a type-in culture and that all navigation today is done through Search Engines. Sure, we see type-ins in the ascii world but no one has had a good argument as to whether type-in is a specific cultural development or is an inherent behavior when one mixes any human being with the right combo of internet tools (capable browsers, etc). As a student of anthropology, I have placed my bets on the latter hypothesis but knowing that there is great uncertainty. (I know many of you are adamant that type-in traffic will develop naturally but sadly wishing it or being invested in that hypothesis does not make it more true).

Well today, I had my first substantial evidence that Japanese are sometimes indeed willing to type in. The circumstances are that over the weekend I have a very short domain which refers to an important Japanese bureau I moved from parking to hosting and added google analytics. I have only gotten five visits in the last 2 days - analytics says that the traffic came from "direct" navigation not a search engine. Also the browser analysis says that all 5 of them came from an IDN compatible browser that is 4 safari and 1 firefox. Further all the traffic came from within Japan.

I see why people would type this in - because they think they are navigating to the website of the Japanese bureau (it is a .com and the .jp is reserved). But what is really important is that this looks like it is ACTUAL TYPE-IN. Which means that even if they don't have the means yet to do this the Japanese will indeed probably type-in to some extent once IE7 gets penetration and advertising kicks in.

[rhys]

[QUOTE=Rubber Duck]It may be too early to declare victory as the type-in could just be domainers at this stage.

[QUOTE]

I'm not declaring victory, I'm just saying that I have proof that a Japanese can type in. While that may sound obvious to some of you, I have never ever ever ever had a single shred of proof that this is the case. Every bit of traffic that my sites get now I believe to be from SE not type-in. It is just the circumstances of this domain (people think they are navigating to a government website) that cause people to give direct navigation a shot.

As for whether these are domainers, well, that's what I would say too, but the geographical distribution (all outside of tokyo) and the fact that I got an adsense click suggests to me that these are not all domainers.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by rhys

I'm not declaring victory, I'm just saying that I have proof that a Japanese can type in. While that may sound obvious to some of you, I have never ever ever ever had a single shred of proof that this is the case. Every bit of traffic that my sites get now I believe to be from SE not type-in. It is just the circumstances of this domain (people think they are navigating to a government website) that cause people to give direct navigation a shot.

As for whether these are domainers, well, that's what I would say too, but the geographical distribution (all outside of tokyo) and the fact that I got an adsense click suggests to me that these are not all domainers.

I wasn't accusing you of be triumphalist. I was just trying to make it clear that I am not clutching at every straw of evidence. It is encouraging, but still very early days.

I have to say, I have never had any doubts that all language groups will do this. Some might take a tad longer, but I don't think it will be significant.

I don't personally think that browsers without navigation bars will ever catch on.

[mulligan]

I have been watching my names for evidence of type in for a while and in the past 1 or 2 months I have started recieving typein traffic. Sure it is small and Yahoo supplies most traffic but the small % that IS typein is 10 times more than it was 2 months ago.
I don't want to mention the domain and have removed other referers but it is a two word domain made up of 4 Kanji characters, so is more than 4 keystrokes.

Whether they initally found the domain via Yahoo and are now a repeat visitor, and type it in is irrelevant, they are still typing it in.

(Ignore US results as they account for minimal visits, all others are from Japan with multiple hits from a variety of major cities)

..

[alpha]

Originally Posted by rhys

.... As a student of anthropology...

are you really qualified to comment on this Rhys, wtf has the study of spiders and other creepy-crawlies got to do with this?

[rhys]

Lol

[alpha]

Looking at the hairy arse spider, suddenly Rhys has a Eureka moment and determines that the Japanese do type-in

[rhys]

Apparently, its the same sort of powerful deductive reasoning commonly found among ASCII domainers. When will they stop telling us that English is the language of the internet. LOL