IDN Punycode Converter

About IDN Punycode Converter/Decoder

Use the free online tool to encode/decode the IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names) domains. The tool converts the domain name with special characters (Unicode) to Punycode encoding (just ASCII) or vice-versa.

What is an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN)?

With time, internet usage is increasing globally. Today the world is full of many different languages and scripts. There are approximately 4.66 billion internet users in the world today. Most prefer to use their native language on the internet also.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are the domain names with specialized characters.

• It is written in languages or scripts using Latin letters with diacritics (accents marks such as é or ü).
• Do not use the Latin alphabet at all.

Until 2003, domain names were only allowed to consist of characters from

• Latin alphabet
• The numbers 0 to 9
• Hyphen

We can easily understand these boundaries by closely examining the Domain Name System's (DNS) responsible for performing DNS lookup.

DNS operates on a naming scheme based on the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). This system is mainly built on English-language keyboards and is unfamiliar with an international project like the internet.

To overcome that limited usage of characters in the domain name. A system Internationalizing Domain Names (IDNs) was designed. That system aims to define a standardized translation from Unicode into ASCII, making it possible to display every known alphabet in each language on the internet domains.

The RFC 3492-standardized Punycode was developed to display Unicode character strings to ASCII symbols without losing the quality.

That system brings one of the biggest revolutions in the history of the internet and is especially useful for individuals using Asian, African, or Arabic character systems. It allows every Unicode text to be in the IDN domain and offers a great way to connect with your target market regardless of their native language.

The IDN system enables internet users to use the entire alphabet of their language in their domain names. They are no longer restricted to the English alphabets A-Z and can use the complete Latin character set and characters from other languages, including Chinese and Japanese.

How IDN(s) work?

IDN(s) works by encoding the domain name using a Punycode system.

When you wish to register the IDN domain, you must first encode it using the Punycode system and register that encoded version.

When the web user enters a URL containing an IDN domain in its browser bar, the browser first converts that IDN domain into Punycode and then resolves that domain.

For example, there is an IDN domain aüc.com. That IDN domain is first converted to Punycode (ac-xka.com), and then the prefix "xn--" will be added to make it suitable for DNS queries. The final result will be (xn--ac-xka.com).

Note: Not all TLDs support all languages. Therefore, while acquiring the domain name, you must select the language that matches the characters you are using in your domain.

How to use the IDN encoder/decoder online tool to encode or decode the IDN domain?

To avail of that facility, perform the following steps.

• Open the IDN encoder/decoder online tool.
• Enter an IDN domain (faß.de) in the text area under "Text / IDN" heading.
• Click on the "Convert to Punycode" button.
• The tool will process your request and provide you with an encoded string in the text area under the "Punny Code / ASCII" heading.
• The result will be in that form (xn--fa-hia.de).
• Copy that encoded IDN domain, and paste it to the desired location for further use.