Is it time for URLs containing emoji?

Domains with Emoji exist for many years, but still have not gained popularity

[ Unfortunately, the editor Habra does not allow Emoji to be inserted into the text. Emoji links can be found in the original text of the article ( copy of the article on the Archive website ) / approx. trans. ]

If you enter ghostemoji.ws in the address bar of the browser and .ws, you will be taken to two different sites. And this is just one of the problems of people using emoji in the URL.
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Domains that use Emoji have been around for quite some time, and became famous thanks to the Coca-Cola advertising campaign, which was released in 2015 in South America. Using the 2823 available emoji breaks down language barriers that can be useful for international companies.

But they did not take off for several reasons. For example, in practice, a URL with Emoji is much easier to enter on the phone than on a desktop computer. Many people do not even know about the commands that open the emoji keyboard in their browser. Emoji can not be entered into the user's biography in Instagram and as links in Google Docs.

Even the operating systems took a long time to support Emoji. On the Mac, they did not appear until OS X 10.7 Lion, on the iPhone - up to iOS 6, on the PC - up to Windows 7, on Androids up to 4.4.

However, since Emoji is constantly updated by the Unicode consortium, which approves standards for them, some of the newest Emoji may not be displayed.

For example, Paige Howie , an investor in domain names and digital assets, has a bad attitude in emoji-containing URLs. “If I tell you, 'your domain will be a Teddy Bear Emoji point double es,' it will be longer than the domain itself, and will require a few words,” says Howie. He sold domains like Seniors.com and Guy.com for millions of dollars.

Howe's company owns about 450 domains with emoji. The most expensive of them - .ws, or "smiley eyes with a smile," or "Emoji with a blush," for which he asks for $ 9,500, and the cheapest - , "Triple snow", for which they ask $ 95.

On another site for Emoji domain sellers, Efty, some domains are priced at $ 59,000.

“I think that interest in emoji domains has fallen due to the fact that this is a very new topic, and that most people hesitate when they encounter the first trouble with such domains - the inability to pronounce it,” says Howie.

By the way, about the inconvenience - these characters are also not always fully compatible with programs that read from the screen, intended for people with missing or poor eyesight. Non-Visual Desktop Access, an open-screen on-screen reader for Windows, as well as Apple’s built-in program can say it out loud, but the built-in reader for iOS and Android phones cannot. Therefore, "I love you ”Will be read as“ I have you red heart ”on the iPhone and“ I have you heart ”on Android.

For ICANN's domain name and IP address management corporation, emoji domains are another big problem : they are insecure.

“Some emoji on different platforms look different, so when a user looks at a URL, he may not know which character is shown there,” says Paul Hofman, ICANN chief technology officer. "Moreover, some emoji are very similar to others, and this can lead to confusion, and in the worst case, to fraud."

In theory, a user can easily get caught in phishing by clicking on an emoji with a green apple ( ) instead of emoji with red ( ). The same can be said about Emoji, depicting people with different skin color. Even the same emoji look different in different browsers and social networks, which can be confusing.

“Emoji’s impact on security and interoperability convinced the public that they should not be allowed to be used in domain names,” Hofman adds.

There are two types of domains, generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and national top-level domains (ccTLDs). ICANN is helping to maintain order and security in the world of common domains by issuing rules for their use. But she has no power over how each country decides to register their domains. Therefore, if emoji in domains like .com or .org that fall under ICANN's jurisdiction as gTLDs, cannot be used, they may appear in domains of different countries, such as Samoa, who chose not to follow ICANN standards. Therefore, domains with Emoji end in .ws.

Howie confirms concerns about the safety of using emoji domains, but insists that this problem does not negate the existence of a market for them.

Many emoji domains redirect users to regular web addresses. For example, .ws (happy face) redirects the user to the personal site of an Australian photographer. BUT .ws (phone) - to the website of a Mexican web design company.

Search engines, such as Google, also know how to work with emoji search in domains. Emoji works in the search engines Bing, DuckDuckGo and the Google search bar, although in response to searching for such emoji as pizza or hamburger, you will get pages with explanations of what is emoji. Therefore, if you are trying to find the nearest pizzeria or hamburger, then the search with the help of emoji will not help you. But you can still search for them and some sites get their visitors thanks to such searches.

Howie expects the emoji-domains to become more popular, and is preparing for what he considers possible. Most recently, he bought domains that use emoji with a slice of pizza and emoji with a house. He does not buy all the emoji domains for resale, but concentrates on those that may become popular, for example, on emoticons or triple emoticons. He chooses what he thinks can become commercially valuable in the future, as well as what people may have an emotional connection with.

“I think their novelty has not allowed their popularity to grow as fast as they would like,” says Howie. “But they have a hidden trend of increasing popularity.”