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rhys
6th August 2006, 11:18 AM
Great article

http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/event/2006/06/06/12217.html

Particularly this part
"全般的に日本語ドメイン名は、テキスト・音声いずれの方法で提示した場合も、認知のしやすさや記憶のしやすさなどの点でローマ字や英語よりも優れていたという。ローマ字は文字を読み取るのが困難であり、英語は文字を書くところが困難だった。これに対して、日本語はいずれも優位性があった。また、単語の長さについて見ると、ローマ字と英語は長い単語になると成績が悪化したが、日本語は長い単語でも優位だったとしている。さらに、日本語の単語では文字数が少ないことから、携帯電話からの入力に日本語ドメイン名が向いているという。結果から明らかなように「言うまでもなく日本語が使えたほうがいい。日本語ドメイン名環境があると考えれば、間違いなく、日本人にとっては日本語のほうが英語やローマ字よりはわかりやすい」(野島教授)。 "

rhys' quick summary - a recent psychological experiment conducted with participants ranging from 20 year old students to 60 year olds tested the relative merits of Japanese language versus ASCII domains in terms of recognition, recall of, and typing-in of such domain names. The experiment concluded that in every case, Japanese domain names were superior to ASCII domain names. "Yup, for Japanese people, the Japanese language is just easier to understand than English and roman letters." The study did find one current barrier which was that most participants were completely unaware that Japanese domain names existed or were even possible.

So if there are any more doubting Thomases out there who would like to tell me that ASCII is the best solution for domain names in countries like Japan or China, go look over your ASCII portfolios and shoot yourselves in the head. Guys your Japanese portfolio is money in the bank!!!

Rubber Duck
6th August 2006, 11:29 AM
Great article

http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/event/2006/06/06/12217.html

Particularly this part
"全般的に日本語ドメイン名は、テキスト・音声いずれの方法で提示した場合も、認知のしやすさや記憶のしやすさなどの点でローマ字や英語よりも優れていたという。ローマ字は文字を読み取るのが困難であり、英語は文字を書くところが困難だった。これに対して、日本語はいずれも優位性があった。また、単語の長さについて見ると、ローマ字と英語は長い単語になると成績が悪化したが、日本語は長い単語でも優位だったとしている。さらに、日本語の単語では文字数が少ないことから、携帯電話からの入力に日本語ドメイン名が向いているという。結果から明らかなように「言うまでもなく日本語が使えたほうがいい。日本語ドメイン名環境があると考えれば、間違いなく、日本人にとっては日本語のほうが英語やローマ字よりはわかりやすい」(野島教授)。 "

rhys' quick summary - a recent psychological experiment conducted with participants ranging from 20 year old students to 60 year olds tested the relative merits of Japanese language versus ASCII domains in terms of recognition, recall of, and typing-in of such domain names. The experiment concluded that in every case, Japanese domain names were superior to ASCII domain names. "Yup, for Japanese people, the Japanese language is just easier to understand than English and roman letters." The study did find one current barrier which was that most participants were completely unaware that Japanese domain names existed or were even possible.

So if there are any more doubting Thomases out there who would like to tell me that ASCII is the best solution for domain names in countries like Japan or China, go look over your ASCII portfolios and shoot yourselves in the head. Guys your Japanese portfolio is money in the bank!!!

It will be just as soon as we can figure out why Yahoo is Stone Walling us on the indexing of Japanese domains. We rushed through Russian, Arabic and Hindi, but drew a complete blank on Japanese with Yahoo. Getting good result on Google for Japan but that is not exactly the main prize.

domainguru
6th August 2006, 11:31 AM
I've nothing against trials, and happy to see the results. Just find it kind of bizarre that something so self-obvious (Japanese speakers prefer to read and write in Japanese) actually requires confirmation. Ah well, nice to have some "proof" to show the doubters I suppose.

rhys
6th August 2006, 11:45 AM
I've nothing against trials, and happy to see the results. Just find it kind of bizarre that something so self-obvious (Japanese speakers prefer to read and write in Japanese) actually requires confirmation. Ah well, nice to have some "proof" to show the doubters I suppose.

It's obvious to us certainly. But just this week, we had someone telling us that Japanese and Chinese were too hard to type in for Japanese and Chinese people. We aren't the folks that need convincing.

domainguru
6th August 2006, 11:48 AM
It's obvious to us certainly. But just this week, we had someone telling us that Japanese and Chinese were too hard to type in for Japanese and Chinese people. We aren't the folks that need convincing.

Yep agreed. External studies are always a good thing. Now if M$oft would only get round to releasing IE7, we could move this whole IDN thing on to the next level, where webmasters actually choose IDNs for their websites, and the whole thing actually "happens". After 5 years, I think I am finally running out of patience :p

Prodigy
6th August 2006, 11:50 AM
The more people that are sitting on the fence or behind the fence, the more opp there is for us.

When the consumer tide starts to change, they can start clambering over that fence of doubt, but pay us a premium toll to do so.

Rubber Duck
6th August 2006, 11:50 AM
Yep agreed. External studies are always a good thing. Now if M$oft would only get round to releasing IE7, we could move this whole IDN thing on to the next level, where webmasters actually choose IDNs for their websites, and the whole thing actually "happens". After 5 years, I think I am finally running out of patience :p

Yes, to be honest with you I don't see why they couldn't have just banged the pluggin into IE 6.0 as a patch. It would have saved a lot of agrevation.

domainguru
6th August 2006, 12:01 PM
The more people that are sitting on the fence or behind the fence, the more opp there is for us.

When the consumer tide starts to change, they can start clambering over that fence of doubt, but pay us a premium toll to do so.

Sure, it has been the last 6 months "extra delay" that has got me in a great position. But purely from a selfish perspective, I have the domains in place now, and want the next phase to happen ASAP. So if you are reading this Bill, go ahead and release IE7 on Monday !

Rubber Duck
6th August 2006, 12:22 PM
Sure, it has been the last 6 months "extra delay" that has got me in a great position. But purely from a selfish perspective, I have the domains in place now, and want the next phase to happen ASAP. So if you are reading this Bill, go ahead and release IE7 on Monday !

Too true! Can't come soon enough for many of us.

Those that have a problem with an early release, should be trying to get some real value into their portfolios. Trying to new reg quality is a nightmare, the drops have been highjacked but the secondary market is totally neglected. Identify a few reputable traders and see what they have to offer. If you think it is expensive now, trust me, it won't get any better than this!

markits
6th August 2006, 12:25 PM
Awesome!!

thegenius1
6th August 2006, 05:02 PM
Great article

English and roman letters." The study did find one current barrier which was that most participants were completely unaware that Japanese domain names existed or were even possible.

Guys your Japanese portfolio is money in the bank!!!

That is something that i have experienced trying to network with people from Japan , they have absolutley no clue about being able to access domains in there language , they get so jacked up when they find out it almost make me want to cry :)

touchring
6th August 2006, 05:28 PM
Sure, it has been the last 6 months "extra delay" that has got me in a great position. But purely from a selfish perspective, I have the domains in place now, and want the next phase to happen ASAP. So if you are reading this Bill, go ahead and release IE7 on Monday !


I've not finished collecting, bill, please give me another 6 months or even more the better. :p

Also a reminder - for guys holding trademarks or "possible trademarks" - please prepare yourself...whatever you need to do. :)

Olney
6th August 2006, 07:01 PM
The thing is westerners in general always have a sterotype about Asian languages. Asians are partly to blame though.
Japanese would say in heartbeat to a nonJapanese that "Japanese must be hard" "Kanji must be hard" but realize that a Japanese person that can hardly read is unheard of. Even homeless can be seen reading in their leisure time.

Many get this false comfort that easy for them is easy for everyone.

My initial personal reservations with IDNs were
1. Punycode
2. I thought they scrapped the system.

After I found out that Punycode was just the mapping system, & the IDN system was still a go. I was all in...

I like Edwin used to register Romaji domains. I still have a few active sites. Only one domain though I was able to secure the IDN for (only 1 that I wanted to develop).

blastfromthepast
6th August 2006, 07:20 PM
Great article

http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/event/2006/06/06/12217.html


Rhys, do you have a link to their RSS feed?

thegenius1
6th August 2006, 07:38 PM
Rhys, do you have a link to their RSS feed?

Here it is http://bulknews.net/rss/rdf.cgi?InternetWatch

blastfromthepast
6th August 2006, 07:53 PM
Here it is http://bulknews.net/rss/rdf.cgi?InternetWatch

Thanks. Feed added to the 'other' forum.

rhys
6th August 2006, 08:45 PM
It will be just as soon as we can figure out why Yahoo is Stone Walling us on the indexing of Japanese domains. We rushed through Russian, Arabic and Hindi, but drew a complete blank on Japanese with Yahoo. Getting good result on Google for Japan but that is not exactly the main prize.

Actually, I confirmed today that the first batch of 50 or so domains that I set up with URL forwarding and metatags are indexed with extension correctly in Yahoo.co.jp. (通訳者.com, 出会系.net, etc). There doesn't appear to be any stone-walling going on. Whether this will help traffic for many of these domains remains to be seen. The few I have where the domain+extension are already actively searched for will no doubt benefit immensely. But again, that's only a handful of domains I can count on.

Rubber Duck
6th August 2006, 09:12 PM
Actually, I confirmed today that the first batch of 50 or so domains that I set up with URL forwarding and metatags are indexed with extension correctly in Yahoo.co.jp. (通訳者.com, 出会系.net, etc). There doesn't appear to be any stone-walling going on. Whether this will help traffic for many of these domains remains to be seen. The few I have where the domain+extension are already actively searched for will no doubt benefit immensely. But again, that's only a handful of domains I can count on.

No we are getting good results even with those that are not yet URL forwarded. The confusion has arisen as we were searching the puny-code to check indexing. For Russian, Arabic and Hindi, this works very well. Yahoo japan is a bit different so you use the Unicode instead on the dot JP site.

Whilst sceptisism is understandable, it would appear that there is a correlation between indexing and traffic.

There is some stonewalling going on, however, in relation to the Chinese Firewall. It would seem you cannot index domains parked at Dopa. I have reset mine to ND to get the indexing, but what purpose that will serve has yet to be seen.

The next burning question is whether it is possible to get rank on Baidu?

Giant
6th August 2006, 10:01 PM
No we are getting good results even with those that are not yet URL forwarded. The confusion has arisen as we were searching the puny-code to check indexing. For Russian, Arabic and Hindi, this works very well. Yahoo japan is a bit different so you use the Unicode instead on the dot JP site.

Whilst sceptisism is understandable, it would appear that there is a correlation between indexing and traffic.

There is some stonewalling going on, however, in relation to the Chinese Firewall. It would seem you cannot index domains parked at Dopa. I have reset mine to ND to get the indexing, but what purpose that will serve has yet to be seen.

The next burning question is whether it is possible to get rank on Baidu?

You can make use of the search engines to get more traffic, and you can also get banned by the search engines depends on how you do. Most parked sites are not welcome by search engines.

A good search engine is one that can cope with SEO experts effectively. Imagine the best positions of search results are all sites placed by SEO people with linked ads, who would want to use such search engine?

In the long run, using good keyword domain names is the best solution (for traffic).

Rubber Duck
6th August 2006, 10:07 PM
You can make use of the search engines to get more traffic, and you can also get banned by the search engines depends on how you do. Most parked sites are not welcome by search engines.

A good search engine is one that can cope with SEO experts effectively. Imagine the best positions of search results are all sites placed by SEO people with linked ads, who would want to use such search engine?

In the long run, using good keyword domain names is the best solution (for traffic).

This strategy is not going to storm the top ten positions on any keyword search, and will probably only work at all for keywords that relate closely to the URL. It is unlikely that you are going to get SERP position with keywords not closely related to the URL. Hence "using good keyword domain names" is essential to the strategy, but that is what I thought we were all trying to buy. Having said that looking through sales and appraisal threads lately, it would seem that some are loosing their way a little.

One of the key reasons for doing this though, is that it ties in with local habits and circumvents the requirement for an IDN enabled browser.