New Arab domain name heralds growth in sites catering to Middle East
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN) – a US-based body governing domains such as .com, .org and .info – has approved a .emarat domain name for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which will serve as an alternative to the English variant, .ae.
According to Khalid Fattal, Chairman and CEO of the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) and a member of ICAAN, a wealth of such initiatives, designed to bolster Arab access to the web, is transforming how Arabic language-only web surfers view the world, commerce and social networking sites.
“This is of paramount importance to more than 350 million Arabs whose native language is Arabic, and 1.5 billion Muslims, who learn the Arabic language for reading the Quran, the vast majority of whom do not know English, and who have been isolated from the English internet phenomenon due to the language barrier of the Internet, and delays in deploying multilingual domains names, IDNs,” he said.
The new .emarat domain name is part of a wider movement across the globe as the hitherto English-language dominated Internet gives way to a new multilingual era. International marketers must keep up-to-date with such developments, in order to ensure that marketing collateral is relevant and that their marketing planning process reflects the reality of today’s world.
Baher Esmat, ICAAN’s Middle East Regional Manager, described the region as “hungry for” more localised applications. “Given the growth in internet use in the Arab world,” he said. “the volume of content will naturally increase, especially with the development taking place in social media and blogging.”
Websites which use Arab domain names will undoubtedly be in a stronger position to foster a greater sense of trust and connection within Arab-speaking web users. Any brand implementing international marketing campaigns needs to be sure that it is picking the most relevant vehicle for its online marketing, in each key country market.
“The MENA region is rapidly playing catch up to the more mature markets,” added Joanne Kubba, Global communications and Public Affairs Manager at Google, Middle East and North Africa.
Tags: global marketing
