What is an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN)?
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Last Updated:
September 25, 2008 1:00 PM
An Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) is a domain name that may contain characters outside the ASCII character set. Setting up a hosting account requires that the domain name be entered using ASCII characters. When an Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) to ASCII algorithm is applied, an IDN is translated into Punycode, an encoding syntax based on the ASCII character set.
For example, when the domain name 世界.com is translated into Punycode, the result is xn--rhqv96g.com.
Windows shared hosting accounts running IIS 7 support IDNs and accept the use of Punycode during account set up.
For more information, see Can I use Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) with my IIS 7 Windows shared hosting account?.