Why .CN Domain Names’ values will fall slightly, International Domain Names on the rise.

Have you invested in .CN Domain Names? Right now, it does seem like it’s a sound and a valuable piece of internet real estate (with 338 million internet users) but situations have changed. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has recently announced that China Language Domain Names (.中国) will soon be possible…

… The new IDN (International Domain Name) .中国 is soon to take over the .CN counterpart within 2 years, and is going to be the most visited IDN by Chinese visitors. This will increase the internet page views, loyalty, visits from the Chinese rather than the english version domain names.

– Chinese will always support their own –

So why will it be better than the .CN Domain Name?

• The Government is pushing to promote this by having the local government to use the IDNs as their domain name extension.
• Easily remembered by locals (Chinese Language)
• Chinese supporting their own (Chinese are known to love their country a lot, that they’ll support this)

My speculation is that .CN domain names are valuable now but will fall slightly in 2 years time when IDN gets out depending on how many people actually switch. The .CN domain name, however, will really rely on foreigners and english speakers who search in English. But, at the end of the day, it is really how Search Engines rank IDN vs ccTLD. But right now, IDN’s do rank higher than ccTLDs. I believe it’s a sad day for those who has invested in this domain name who expects a massive payout in a few years time, but It should continue to rise in value for the next 2 years before the IDN comes out. Afterall, China does need to use the internet before their own IDN is released.