Forum Moderators: open
1. Network Solutions [networksolutions.com]
I have read that I can register .com, .net, .org names in Chinese here for US $30 per year. However, I have read here [webmasterworld.com] that the Chinese government isn't all to happy with a US company registering Chinese names. Is this a problem I should be concerned with?
2. Other multilingual .com, .net, .org registrars
Are there any that would be better than Network Solutions? I'm not a huge NSI fan. What are the best alternatives?
3. China Internet Network Information Center [cnnic.net.cn] (CNNIC)
This appears to be the registrar for .cn domain names. Am I correct? They're charging 300 RMB (about US $36) per year for a domain name, and it doesn't look like they take credit cards... :(
Next, I need to ask what's popular? Do the Chinese search engines and directories place any importance on having a .cn name? Then within that I noticed there are .com.cn, .org.cn, and .net.cn sub domains. This is for a commercial website that is not focused on any particular area of China, so I assume a .com.cn name would be best.
My company has a local representative office in China, so I assume it will not be a problem to register a .cn name I guess I need to know whether it will be a hassle to conform to the CNNIC requirements. I plan to do hosting outside China.
>fixed URLs<
[edited by: bill at 12:21 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
To answer some of your questions.
Popularity first: - The Chinese engines from what I can see don't seem to place any specific importance on the domain and pay no preference to .cn domains. What they seem to be after is content irrespective on domain. So in that respect there seems little to gain.
Chinese Domains:- This raises a few problems. One of my pet challenges with the Chinese internet system is "who has control?". Have a look through some of my earlier posts, like Registering Chinese Domain Names [webmasterworld.com] and some of the other posts entitled "The net grows tighter", or something like that, and you will see what I mean.
Governments all over the world are treying to control the net for various reasons, the Chinese Government for obvious ones. I believe a prerequisite of having a .cn domain is that it must be hosted in China which places your site directly under the ultimate control of the Chinese Government. Not a situation I would like to be in.
The other problem is the "unrest" between Verisign/NSI and CNJIC over who has control of registering Chinese Character Domains. While the rest of the world seems happy enough to go along with Verisign's plans, the Chinese Government are not. So if you register a Character Domain, which company do you register with? Do you register with only one and hope you end up with the winner, or register with both and let them fight it out?
You could however take another route and register a domain in the Pinyin Romaisation of the Chinese name. As Pinyin is taught in primary school in China most ner users would not have any problems with this.
Now I have to say that whilst writing this post, Bill and I ended up discussing this situation via chat, and Bill came up with some pretty good ideas on how to solve the problem.
So at this point I will hand it over to Bill to explain some of his reservations and solutions. ... with many thanks from us all for all the information on Japan he is providing ...
Onya
Woz
The Chinese engines from what I can see don't seem to place any specific importance on the domain and pay no preference to .cn domains.That is somewhat similar to what I've experienced in Japan. .jp names don't seem to have too much pull on the engines (other than Goo [goo.ne.jp])
I believe a prerequisite of having a .cn domain is that it must be hosted in China which places your site directly under the ultimate control of the Chinese Government.That's not something I would be interested in dealing with, although if it meant better placement on the SEs then I might be willing to go the extra mile. As Woz mentioned, we did chat about this, and a couple of ideas were thrown around. One idea was to register a .cn name and then find either a domain forwarding service in China, or a cheap host, and point that toward another domain hosted outside China. Another idea came from a pop-up ad on sohu.com [sohu.com]. I hate pop-ups too Sohu is promoting and selling .CC domain names. I couldn't read all the marketing hype, but did you say that these .cc names are being used by the Chinese government Woz? That could be another option.
The CNNIC [cnnic.net.cn] vs. VeriSign/NSI [networksolutions.com] situation is fascinating. Have there been any further fireworks? I've been watching the news, but haven't seen anything substantial since earlier this year [webmasterworld.com]. Like you said Woz, these China only domains, like other unsanctioned domain suffixes [webmasterworld.com] add to the confusion. Is it worth buying one or the other or all of them? I may test out some combinations. If anyone else has experience with this tell us.
You could however take another route and register a domain in the Pinyin Romaisation of the Chinese name.I hadn't thought of that. I was coming at this from the Japanese standpoint where a lot of the same Chinese characters are used in names. I assume that the Pinyin naming method has been standard up until now?
Right now, depending on how the .cn hosting rules pan out it looks like the best solution for a primary domain name would be a Pinyin .com with any other names pointing toward that. I'm going to give this a little more thought. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the help.
>fixed URLs<
[edited by: bill at 12:24 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
There are some very interesting presentations online at the Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC [cdnc.org]) site. There is information there indicating that full-fledged Chinese character domain name registration systems have been in place in Taiwan and China since late last year.
Woz, in some of your previous threads you had posted links to some articles about the Chinese government being upset about NSI handling Chinese domains. There is a really good announcement [cdnc.org] on the CDNC site that explains this in English.
From what I can gather, the CNNIC is setting up a service that will work with Chinese character .cn names, but it will require a separate software on the server or client PC. I had the impression that this was somewhat like the UniCode Domain Names that were promoted by i-DNS.net [i-DNS.net]. Does this mean that everyone in China is going to have to download a plug-in to resolve Chinese domain names?;) In my case, I really don't want customers to have to download a plug-in just so that they can get to my web site, so the UniCode Domain Names from places like NJStar [unicodedn.com] are out.
>fixed URLs<
[edited by: bill at 12:27 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
The short answer to your question:-
It seems that the only Chinese Character domain registrations system up and running at the moment is at NSI, but you can't use it yet, and there is no real guarentee that you ever will be able to use it.
The long answer is:-
I had a good look at that link about CDNC and followed through the proceedings of the CDNC. To summarise:-
The CDNC mainly consists of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao, with representation from Malaysia, Japan and Korea. Whilst it is good that these countries are getting together to form the protocols and regulations for a Chinese Character Domain Name, they are still battling the NSI system, which they are at pains to point out is still in the experimental stage and not approved by ICCAN.
From what I am reading, the system translates the chracters into an "english alphabet" domain name and all resolutions are done on that domain name; similar to the NSI system where I believe they preceed the romanisation of the characters with unpopular letter combinations such as qz and the likes.
To resolve those domain names, as you rightly suggested, software needs to be installed on the DNS servers around the world, and if not, then software is needs on the PC (they don't specifically mention Mac but they may mean both..).
Regarding [url=www.i-DNS.net]i-DNS.net[/url], their press release of April 18th 2001 lists offices in China, Japan and Korea, and touts their system as a PC only plugin for "converting a non-English character domain name into the format used for registration and resolution of domain names in VeriSign's Multilingual Testbed." Full press release here [i-dns.net]. (( They also promote that the press release was cited www.insidechina.com, although this site is not owned or run by any Chinese interests, but by a European company. ))
I would not be surprised if i-DNS.net is involved with both NSI and the Chinese system. The real sticking point with the chinese is not whether NSI uses a differing/similar or even the same system as CDNC, but rather one of sovereignty and therefor control.
The Chinese domain name registration system has several restrictions on domain ownership as we have discussed in previous threads. Some of the restrictions are good, some not so good, but they do keep a tight reign on Chinese domains as do a lot of countries. Also, the registration process is very much caught up in red tape with only paper applications accepted.
However, if the NSI system gets up and becomes official, then the restrictions the Chinese plac on a .cn domain will become innefectual if users can simply hop over to NSI and get the same domain in .com instead without any fuss.
The NSI system is still in test mode. To quote, "Multilingual Domain Names are being offered as part of a trial period or "testbed." Resolution of Multilingual Domain Names has not yet occurred, and, although anticipated at a later stage of the testbed, cannot be guaranteed. Future changes in Multilingual Domain Name technology standards may invalidate some of the names registered during the testbed."
This comes from here [global.networksolutions.com] with more information available here [global.networksolutions.com].
In fact, a quotation from the last URL states, "Initially, your name will be reserved (parked) until sometime in the future when VeriSign Global Registry Services is able to match your new name with the Web site's location, also known as name resolution." So even at NSI, things are very much in the "never never" stage.
Hop this helps,
Onya
Woz
Multilingual Domain Names are being offered as part of a trial period or "testbed." Resolution of Multilingual Domain Names has not yet occurred, and, although anticipated at a later stage of the testbed, cannot be guaranteed. Future changes in Multilingual Domain Name technology standards may invalidate some of the names registered during the testbedGood find Woz. I had been under the impression that at least some of the multilingual domains were already up and running at NSI [networksolutions.com] after reading all those press releases they've been pumping out. I should have read into that more carefully. So, as it now stands at NSI you'd be paying $30 US per domain to do what? (other than hold your name)
That press release at i-DNS.net [i-dns.net] you mentioned is interesting. I'm starting to believe that all multilingual domain name resolution is going to rely on a plug-in of some sort. i-DNS.net's iClient [i-dns.net] plug-in only seems to work with Windows as you mentioned, but I'm sure that will change.
Multilingual domain names appear to be a lot further off than all of these press releases would have us believe. Given that NSI doesn't have any schedule posted, and the problems with CNNIC aside, it seems that the technology to accomplish this is also causing problems. For instance, it seems that,
Under the current system, you will not be able to establish an e-mail account based on non-English language characters.That's going to cause some headaches. Multilingual domains, while a great marketing idea, just aren't ready for prime-time it seems. I'll keep them in mind, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Current best bet for a Chinese domain name:
1. pinyin-name.com, pinyin-name.net
2. pinyin-name.com.cn, pinyin-name.net.cn if I can determine whether hosting must be done within China or not
3. Chinese character .com not yet possible
>fixed URLs<
[edited by: bill at 12:29 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
Now, about those demerit beers....
>fixed URLs<
[edited by: bill at 12:30 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
I've no idea but I'll find out.
Onya
Woz
Just so you don't think you are lost, your message was such a good one it deserves it's own thread. So we moved it over here [webmasterworld.com].
Onya
Woz
*Traditional Chinese (Big5)
*Simplified Chinese (GB)
*Korean (KSC)
*Japanese (Shift_JIS)
Chinese Domain Service AB will soon open for registration of domain names with Asian character sets.As I mentioned above, I just don't see anything more than the registration of double byte character domain names any time soon. In other words, multilingual domain names are still in the testing phase now. After looking over a lot of the presentation material on the Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC [cdnc.org]) site and other sites, the only conclusion I could draw is that multilingual domains are still problematic, and not ready for prime time. Yes, they'll be happy to take your money, but the system doesn't work yet.
If they can figure out a way to do multilingual domain names that doesn't require a browser or server plug-in they may be able to get this off the ground. I'd be more than happy to be wrong on this. I could really use some multilingual domain names...I'm just not holding my breath. ;)
>fixed URL<
[edited by: bill at 12:32 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
My sentiments exactly Bill. Not wishing to sound pessimistic, Character Domains will be great, when they are off the ground and work in a standard browser.
But until then,
<inhale>...<exhale>...
<inhale>...<exhale>...
<inhale>...<exhale>
Onya
Woz
BTW they have changed name to Asian domain service.
[asiandomainservice.com...]
Is there any way to search for a particular country's domain, rather than searching an entire region?
don't waste money in .net, .cn, especially
Chinese character.com
if you want to search for chinese domain, look here: [4e.china-channel.com...]
[fixed URL - Woz]
(edited by: Woz at 3:57 am (gmt) on July 28, 2001
.com is the best domain in china.
[edited by: bill at 12:33 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
If you find very simple .cn, registe it;
If you have a chinese version of your site,registe .cn;
But if you want only another version of the .com for your english site, then I think it is worthless to registe .cn.
//Are there any Chinese SEs that limit themselves to .cn domains? //
There is no Chinese SE whitch limit itself to .cn domain.
If you have a chinese version of your site, register .cnThis is for a fully Chinese version of my web. I'm still debating whether I should use .com or .cn as the main domain as I've heard that both are popular. I even read somewhere that .net.cn was the new rage.
This is a fairly important decision, because whatever I choose will be printed on all business cards, catalogs, brochures and company-wide websites. Thank you for helping add your thoughts to this thread. I really appreciate your insight.
Looks like the CNNIC will be opening up the .cn domain names to companies outside China starting in December this year. See the ZDNet article [news.zdnet.co.uk] for more info. I'll certainly be in line for a few.
However I am already getting Chinese language spam telling be that they'll register my current domain names with top level .cn equivalents. I must have missed something along the line, and I can't find the info on the CNNIC [cnnic.net.cn] site. When will top level .cn domain names be available to register?
