You can order .de, .dk, .nu and .se domains with special characters like å ü and ø. These are called Internationalized Domain Names (IDN).
We currently don't support IDNs for other Top-level domains (TLD).
Each TLD supports a limited selection of characters, you can check them via the links below:
- .de supported character list
- .dk supported character list
- .nu supported character list
- .se supported character list
How can I order an IDN?
You can order an IDN like any other domain, simply type in the domain you want with the special characters and complete the order procedure.
Why are IDNs special?
Originally English was the default internet language and because of this DNS is restricted to the ASCII character subset, which represents the English alphabet.
As more people started using the internet, the need arose to create domains with special characters that are common in other languages, or even completely different alphabets, like Chinese. But because DNS doesn't understand these characters, this wasn't possible.
To solve this IDNs were invented. A domain with special characters is converted to "Punycode", which consists of ASCII characters that are supported by DNS.
For example:
The domain "bücher.nu" converted to Punycode is "xn--bcher-kva.nu". You can type both versions of the domain in your browser.
There are several Punycode converters available on the internet, in case you want to know how your domain looks in Punycode.
Are there limitations?
All modern browsers and applications support IDNs, so this shouldn't cause any problems.
You might encounter some issues with email clients or online forms that don't support it. In that case, you can try the Punycode version of an email address. If neither the IDN or the Punycode version is supported you need to use an alternative email.
Tip: It's good practice to have an additional non-IDN domain, that forwards (email) to your IDN domain. That way you are covered when IDN fails.
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