Speak french or own french names? Join the great IDN battle at webrankinfo.com

[nicb5]

As you francophones may or may not know, the popular SEO site webrankinfo.com added a 'Domain names and domaining" to their forums. The section opened recently and there is a good amount of discussion so far.They basically hate domainers and I just threw a bomb in there by starting to talk about IDNs. Some are starting to see the light but most of them see me as a cybersquatter or think that IDNs mess up their SEO process somewhat(I believe SEO is bulls**t but that's another story...). What I see is that there is a great misunderstanding of what IDNs are in the french market and my mission would be for them to grasp the basic concepts and judge by themselves if they want to take part in them or not. Writing long intelligent posts seems to work so far but I need all the help I can get to 'convince' them that IDNs are a good thing.

So L@@k, Pete and others please join that forum and support IDNs in the IDN subjects. Our market is out there and sometimes it just needs a little push like that to get things going.

If you DON'T speak french, you CAN still help! Pointing me to great IDN articles that I can then translate for them would help plenty since I have only been into IDNs for 6 months and don't know that much about resources out there concerning them.

I thank everybody that contributes to this.

Nick

[burnsinternet]

They might be upset to discover that the French language (leFrançais.com) is owned by someone in the States (États.com), not the EU (UnionEuropéenne.org).

Eek! :eek:

[L@@K]

Nic, personnaly, I won't try to convince anybody.
Everyone do its own way.
As I said on another french forum, if they don't understand today, they will cry tomorrow. Not my pbm, I do my own way.

Burns, they might will laugh when they will see all garbage taken ,)

[touchring]

It will be good if you guys can convince native webmasters to adopt IDN because if usage is improved, it will be beneficial to domain valuation in the future.

Since you guys are the among the pioneers, if you don't do it, nobody would.

[Fka200]

It will be good if you guys can convince native webmasters to adopt IDN because if usage is improved, it will be beneficial to domain valuation in the future.

Since you guys are the among the pioneers, if you don't do it, nobody would.

I've been trying to do this... it's not as easy as it seems. Been doing a lot of background work in regards to IDNs. Have practically heard every sh!t talk/praise about them in the last 4 months (most recent received was literally 12 minutes ago... sh!t talking...)

[burnsinternet]

Maybe you can convince Dabsi? She is very, very pro-IDN. French IDN.com.

[L@@K]

Number 1 on GG is the only solution, not spend time to try to convince people.
Those who are laughing today are the SAME who will laughing to ascii tomorrow.
Don't want to spend my time to convince little viewers and other followers.

[jacksonm]

Nic, personnaly, I won't try to convince anybody.
Everyone do its own way.
As I said on another french forum, if they don't understand today, they will cry tomorrow. Not my pbm, I do my own way.

Burns, they might will laugh when they will see all garbage taken ,)


I completely agree. Trying to convince someone of something is usually the surest way to push them as far against it as possible. It's just a flaw in basic human nature. Most people on the net these days are "know it alls" and if they don't discover something on their own, then in their mind it's not worth knowing about.

Also, Nic already said that most of them hate domainers. That alone puts this into the "lost cause" category.

.

[Drewbert]

The users will be the ones who decide, and the naysayers will be late to the party.

[dabsi]

Be carefull with webrankinfo;

A lot of 'detectives' taking care for copyright issues....especially if you are not Français....They see domainers as pirates of the web.

In general, there is now a much greater acceptance of this businee than 4 or 5 years ago. Their attention is now drawn on the fact that there is substantial difference between marche. com (walk.com) and marché.com (market.com)

Traffic figures are confirming this trend and we don't see all transactions on latin IDNs :)

Ciao

DABSI

[touchring]

Be carefull with webrankinfo;

A lot of 'detectives' taking care for copyright issues....especially if you are not Français....They see domainers as pirates of the web.

In general, there is now a much greater acceptance of this businee than 4 or 5 years ago. Their attention is now drawn on the fact that there is substantial difference between marche. com (walk.com) and marché.com (market.com)

Traffic figures are confirming this trend and we don't see all transactions on latin IDNs :)

Ciao

DABSI


It's good to know French and Domaining in the late 90s. Golds lying around for picking.

This proves that the Florida guys don't always know everything. :o

[L@@K]

LOL, a guy propose a poll on this forum:
Do you want a fresh list of expired french names ?
All members answer NO !

Definitly nothing to do here...

[nicb5]

Thanks for all the replies guys... I guess you outsmart me on that one with your past domaining experience. Even though in the forums they don't seem to get it at all, I received a lot of PMs asking me questions and thanking me for the info I am giving. I have given up in the forums though. And this is where it gets nice... The guys at webrankinfo.com, most of them see the owner of the site, Olivier, as a guru. Well it just happens that this guy sent me a PM yesterday asking me to provide him with a lenghty article on IDNs that he will post on WRI's blog. This site has a 73 000+ french speaking member base and a lot more visitors with it's Alexa ranking of 2240. This should give French IDNs huge exposure, and since it will be published with Olivier's name, you can be sure that at least a bunch of the herd will follow. What do you guys think of this? So like I mentionned in my first post, I would like it if you could point me to a couple of great resources for IDNs so that I can give them a good article.

Nick

[mulligan]

Nick ... Heres the thing .. YOU are the person who needs to write the article you're talking abt .. From a French speaking perspective .. something these guys can grasp .. something they can understand .. Cafe or Café? In your own language! You want them to bastardize French forever?

[L@@K]

The guys at webrankinfo.com, most of them see the owner of the site, Olivier, as a guru.

A guru who know nothing about idn... :p and some readers that follow all this movement... :p

[Rubber Duck]

A guru who know nothing about idn... and some readers that follow all this movement...

Sounds like a French version of TRAFFICS. :p

[nicb5]

Sounds like a French version of TRAFFICS. :p

Haha! Alright after some thinking, more domainer bashing at WRI and all of your replies, I decided that they are not ready for this yet and may never be... so the article isn't happening. I now tend to agree with L@@k when he says that the solution is reaching #1 in google for a keyword. Nothing will work better than that to open eyes even if it will probably take a LOT of time seeing of stubborn the french web community is. I am sorry for my moment of impatience that led me to this.

Nick

[dabsi]

Nick,

Forget Webrankinfo, democratie seems to be an alien word there.
Check icimarques.com many generic names are protected in France...even Jesus.

You just have to post a list of names at webrankinfo and you get soon a lawyer mail; 'webamsters' there spending their time in sending spam reports to Google...

The legal issue has been by the way discussed in Paris 2 weeks ago with a pool of french lawyeers an a pool of 'french' domainers (all leaving abroad)

Last but not least: you can go now to DNFORUM.COM there is a french section now.

DABSI

[touchring]

Forget Webrankinfo, democratie seems to be an alien word there.
Check icimarques.com many generic names are protected in France...even Jesus.


This has been at the back of my mind. It might be necessary to register a TM even for a generic French word.

[jacksonm]

French citizens living in France are not even allowed to own geo domains of places in France (maybe the entire world) as I understand it.

I heard that the German courts are trying to implement a similar law, perhaps to get that damned cat off the page of germany.com :confused:

I do own a handful of French geo IDNs, and I sometimes wonder how safe they are (I live in Finland).

.

[domainpredator]

I completely agree. Trying to convince someone of something is usually the surest way to push them as far against it as possible. It's just a flaw in basic human nature. Most people on the net these days are "know it alls" and if they don't discover something on their own, then in their mind it's not worth knowing about.

Also, Nic already said that most of them hate domainers. That alone puts this into the "lost cause" category.

.

Congratulations, guys!
If I had read those words of wisdom before, it would have spared me many wasted hours. We'll never convince anybody there, nor in webmaster-hub.com, where the audience is not as strong but better in quality.
According to me, your cause (I'm not so much into IDN for latin languages) is lost. They don't even want to hear about ascii domains.

[jacksonm]

Congratulations, guys!
If I had read those words of wisdom before, it would have spared me many wasted hours. We'll never convince anybody there, nor in webmaster-hub.com, where the audience is not as strong but better in quality.
According to me, your cause (I'm not so much into IDN for latin languages) is lost. They don't even want to hear about ascii domains.


LOL! Thanks for cheering me up :-)

The thing is, webmasters do not get to decide which domains internet users naturally prefer. It applies equally to Latin as well as Chinese. As FS said, we are in the "human behaviour" business.

.