IDNTools Blog

You can see before and after pictures of our logo below. Basically, we want to cater to the IDN community. We thought our initial logo (below right) was perfect and began a large marketing campaign with the logo as the focus, which included a Times Square display (here). As we talked more with IDNForums members and friends, many were supportive of our marketing but felt that the “N” in IDN was hidden in our initial logo. As a result, critics said that our logo looked like it advertised “IDI Tools” and didn’t direct people towards the IDN industry.

We responded by staging a corporate design contest where we wanted to keep the original color scheme and feel of our logo, but wanted to modernize it and distinguish the dreaded “N”. This way we could respond to the constructive criticism while establishing a link with our past marketing. Take a look below.

New Logo

Old Logo

As the year comes to an end, and 2010 is only a hangover away, it’s customary to take a glance back…

With a clear path for full IDNs (IDN.IDN) now announced by Verisign, a recent public 6 figure IDN sale, and ICANN’s groundbreaking expansion of the root with IDN ccTLD launches, it should be no surprise to hear that we are seeing a lot of new interest in the IDN space.

We have somewhat of a unique insight into this interest level, as co-owners of the largest English speaking IDN Forum, and authors of the only aftermarket IDN Newsletter out there, plus providers of what is undeniably the best free IDN conversion tool on the web – watching all these new members/signups & traffic – it’s safe to say, that we have our finger on the pulse… and the rate is rising.

Savvy domainers looking for that edge, have also been signing up to our subscription based IDN droplist tool; in response to customer demand we have now added Google Exact Search Volume to the gTLD droplist metrics – which as any IDNer will tell you is a key part of quality scoring an IDN.

This is a pay-as-you-go Google API, and it’s development and running costs are only made possible through your subscriptions. So on behalf of IDNTools, I would like to thank you for your custom this year, and thank you for helping us make a good tool great!

For more information on the IDNTools droplist tool, or to see a demo click here

Here’s to a prosperous 2010!

As the only commercial provider of user friendly lists of dropping IDNs, you’d think we could afford the luxury of being able to sit on our laurels. Not us, not IDNTools. We have a ton of initiatives in the works, and some of those revolve around dropping IDNs.

Before I come on to what is new, let’s just remind ourselves of what is current.

gTLD IDNs drop just like any other domain, and can be caught just like any other domain. IDNs can also be backordered at the popular domain auction houses, just like any other domain.
And lists of dropping IDNs are published just like any other domain – however they are listed in their technical form (punycode), which is impossible to work with, without first undergoing conversion.

For years, the IDNTools droplist tool you see below has been the staple diet of many an IDNer

Listing dropping IDNs in dot COM and NET for the coming 5 days and also for the previous 5 days

• All domains are shown in their punycode and native language, and translated to English.
• Where a domain that shares it’s characterset with other languages (Chinese & Japanese for example), you can also dynamically translate from an extensive list of languages
• A good sign of a good domain is it’s SERP, so naturally all domains are scored based on the popular search engines with the ability to quickly sort the list.
• Another indicator is whether the term returns Google Trends, this can either be viewed by clicking through to Google Trends or by bringing up an on-page Google Trend graph

The very best drops usually end up backordered at Snapnames, but a surprising number of good domains are not backordered at all, and are left for opportunist dropcatchers to keep or to flip on forums.

It’s not often you get a free lunch, usually there’s a catch. But not with this.

Ever since I acquired IDNTools, there’s been a ton of things I wanted to do with it – relocate it to a fast server, give it a new skin, improve the toolset (particularly the IDN droplist), change the icons, new logo and so on.. I’m lucky, I have a great partner and a healthy budget, and it’s all coming soon.

But back to the free lunch..

I’ve been IDNing for years now, and I pretty much know what works well, what works kinda, and what sucks – and one thing that has frustrated me for a long time is the lack of an intuitive Punycode tool.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a bunch of them out there, but I haven’t found THE ONE.

Being able to convert native language domains to and from Punycode is the staple diet of any IDN domainer – lets face it, we find ourselves doing it many times a day.

For me the perfect Punycode tool needs to tick the following boxes:

• I want to be able to convert just 1 or many domains
• I want to be able to enter either a Unicode (native text) or a Punycode and have the tool just convert it the other way around
• I want to be able to enter terms with or without an extension
• I want to be able to easily copy the results (I don’t want to have to copy the original and converted just because it’s all in one table and then somehow work out how to separate the 2 columns
• I want to be able to quickly clear the selection and start over
• I want to be able to convert hundreds/thousands at a time
• I want it to be quick

..and I want it to be free


IDNTools is now running on a super fast server, and I think we now have the perfect Punycode tool. Built by IDNers for IDNers. Bookmark it.

reposted from IDNdemystified