06 May 2010 | Author: R. Falconer SEO Consultant

Historic day on the web as first non-Latin domains become available

For the first time ever, non-Latin characters are in use for top level domains. The first countries to have these are Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates.

This is the result of an ICANN process known as the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process which started in October 2009. So far 21 requests for IDN ccTLD (Internationalised Domain Name Country Code Top Level Domains) have been received and 13 of these have passed through the second of 3 stages of the process.

These first three countries to have passed the application process and been accepted were delegated into the DNS root zone today, which means they are now available for general use, making Arabic abjad the second script (after Latin) available for use in domains on the internet.

It is unclear at the time of writing whether this will spark a land grab for the best domains in the Middle East. As an emerging internet market it is likely that sites will want to buy not only their brands but domains that are an exact match to high traffic search engine keyphrases.

Other details such as how domains will be distributed / how they can be obtained are sketchy at present too.

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