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Custom Domain Publishing, And World Culture

People who speak (read / write) languages, that do not use Roman character sets, need to publish in their native language - and the Internet now supports that need.

Some registrars will register domains which use non Roman character sets, in the URL. Not all Internet services will accept non Roman characters, however.

My favourite online DNS diagnostic services, DigWebInterface, and intoDNS, and Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer, only use ASCII. One cannot use non ASCII ("non Roman") characters, with either service.

"بحث-سناب.com", as converted, shows an example of an Internationalized domain name.

To use DigWebInterface to retrieve DNS addresses, and intoDNS to check the domain setup, we have to convert the native URL to Ascii.

I use three reliable online services, which will convert URLs to ASCII.


Converting "بحث-سناب.com" to ASCII involves use of one of the latter services.


DomainTools




WhoIs - Identity for everyone




Who.is - Powered by Name.com



Using the 3 tools, we see that "بحث-سناب.com" == "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", "XN----ZMCBCML8B0J.COM", and "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", respectively. Look carefully, in the body of the display for each service, for the IDN equivalent.

We can then use "xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com", with DigWebInterface, and intoDNS - and get the necessary diagnostics.

And using the latter tools, we see a properly setup domain - which is now being used for a properly published Blogger blog, verified in Rex Swain.


DigWebInterface




intoDNS




Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer



And when assistance is requested, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we can use these tools with non Roman character URLs.

There may be limitations, though.

Here is a blog published to "www.राजभाषाअनुभाग.भारत" - aka "www.xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c".







The IDN concept has now led to another domain name concept - "emoji" domains.

Some people have taken the ability to setup a domain, using non Roman characters, to another level. How about a domain name, which includes a smiley face?

This is a limited use feature. Maybe, the limit will save us?

The availability of emoji domains is limited. As of August 2017, there are eight top-level domains for which registration is possible, all of which are ccTLDs: .ai, .cf, .ga, .gq, .ml, .tk, .to, and .ws.

This is intriguing - but is it useful?



If people don't know how to "type" it, how will new readers access the blog? Will search engines index it? Does the Blogger "Create a blog" wizard actually support it?

The jury is still out, here. ".whatever" vanity TLDs started this trend. I'm not sure where this will go, with TLD "emoji" domains.

Houston, we may have a problem with TLDs that are IDN encoded.

For a TLD that is in English ("بحث-سناب.com"), both of these work:

http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com%0D%0Awww.xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com&type=A&useresolver=8.8.4.4&ns=auth&nameservers=

https://intodns.com/xn----zmcbcml8b0j.com

For a TLD that is IDN encoded (राजभाषाअनुभाग.भारत"), we have mixed success.

This works:

http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c%0D%0Awww.xn--l1b0bn3cxacq2d2ccbd1b.xn--h2brj9c&type=A&useresolver=8.8.4.4&ns=auth&nameservers=

This does not work:

https://intodns.com/check/?domain=%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B7%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%85%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%97.%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4



The Internet now supports use of non ASCII characters, in URLs. In order to publish #Blogger blogs to Internationalised Domain Names, we need to convert native URLs to ASCII - using any one of three identified online DNS services.


https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/qKWZ0807m60

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/L1pv6CPUK18

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