When running an online business, the more people the site is available to the better. Obviously, the more people that can find your site, surf the pages, and make purchases, the more money you are going to make. As a result, international domain name (IDN) registration becomes a must in order to ensure you control your site domain name in all of the country specific top-level domain name extensions.

The three most common extensions for domain names today are .com, .org or .net. It is almost guaranteed your current site has one of these three as they are the main extensions to date. With an IDN domain name, you are able to keep the website domain name while having the country specific extension.

For example, in the U.S. the extension would be www.domainname.us. If it were in the UK, your web domain would be www.domainname.uk. Here is a list of some additional common international domain name extensions:

• Europe .eu
• Canada .ca
• Mexico .mx
• Spain. .es
• France .fr
• Italy .it
• China .cn
• Japan .jp

Note that some countries have restrictions on purchasing its country specific extension such as being a resident or having a certified business presence. For this reason, it’s advantageous to work with an experienced registrar such as GoDaddy. It’s also one of the few affordable web hosting companies that offers a wide variety of IDNs.

If you have a preferred web hosting company that doesn’t offer the required country domain name extension, then consider purchasing the web hosting from one company (like HostMonster) and the domain from a company that specializes in IDNs.

There are several benefits to an international domain name registration. Of course, you are able to protect your site domain and company brand. It will also allow you to branch out and connect with those throughout the world. While it is not a necessity, international domain name registration can certainly give you the upper hand on competitors as well.