Kinds of names
IDN (internationalised domain name)
An internationalised domain name, or IDN, is a domain written with letters beyond the basic Latin alphabet, such as accented letters or Chinese characters.
What IDN means in practice
Behind the scenes an IDN is stored in an ASCII form called punycode that starts with xn--. Browsers show the original characters.
IDNs are a small share of all .com names. The State of .com page shows the current share.
Why it matters
Look-alike letters from different alphabets can be used to imitate a brand, so IDNs matter for protecting a name from typosquatting.
Try it
- Lookalike Finder Typos, look-alike characters and "login"-style variants of a brand, and which are registered.
Related terms
- Typosquatting (lookalike domains) Typosquatting is registering a misspelling or lookalike of a well-known name, such as gooogle.com, to catch visitors who mistype or to imitate the brand.
- TLD (top-level domain) A top-level domain, or TLD, is the last part of a domain name, such as .com, .org or .uk. It is the extension that follows the final dot.