FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

.Asia is the designated web address for Asia and Asian communities worldwide. You can use a .Asia domain to expand your business across Asia, cater to an Asian audience or start a personal or professional profile online. It is the one domain that connects you instantly to the largest Internet marketplace and the most dynamic region in the world. .Asia is open to all businesses, individuals and organizations around the world.

.Asia is a Sponsored gTLD. Based on ICANN’s definition (http://www.icann.org/registries/): “A sponsored TLD is a specialized TLD that has a sponsor representing a specific community that is served by the TLD….” The boundaries of the .Asia community are  defined based on the ICANN Asia / Australia / Pacific region (http://www.icann.org/montreal/geo-regions-topic.htm). We retain certain policy formulation responsibilities specific to the interests of the sponsored community. For example, the .Asia registry has an expanded list of reserved domain names; explore the feasibility and value of augmenting the UDRP with local DRP forums; eligibility requirements; and other policies and practices that minimize abusive registration activities and other activities that affect the legal rights of others, especially in the community.

A Domain Name Registry is responsible for managing the database of domains registered under a specific Top-Level-Domain (TLD). The DotAsia Organisation is the registry operator for the .Asia TLD. A Registrar is an entity accredited by ICANN and / or other Registries to sell domain names directly to customers who register domains – also known as the Registrants. If you own a domain, you are a Registrant.  Resellers resell domain names through directly accredited Registrars.

Any business or individual around the world can register a .Asia domain. However, you must fulfill the .Asia Charter Eligibility Requirement. This can be satisfied in the following three ways:

1. One of the contacts for your .Asia domain registration is a legal entity within Asia Pacific community (CED Contact)
2. You have a postal address in the Asia Pacific region (CEA Contact)
3. You identify as an entity that either have established, seeking or have nexus relationship and presence within the Asia Pacific Sponsor Community

For detailed policy information please see .ASIA Charter Eligibility Policy.

Yes, a CED Contact or a CEA Contact may or may not be the same entity as the Registrant Contact, and may be an agent, such as the Sponsoring Registrar, or related entity satisfying the requirements as laid out in the Charter Eligibility Requirement Policies.

.Asia WHOIS information and the .Asia zone files are updated in real time.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are web addresses represented in local languages such as “亚洲.Asia” or “こんにちわ.Asia”.

In short, Punycode is the ASCII character conversion of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN). Punycode is an ASCII-Compatible Encoding (ACE) that translates an IDN or a Unicode sequence into a string of ASCII characters (alphanumerics and hyphens). Punycode strings can be easily identified by their first 4 characters, starting “XN–“.

Asia is continuing its rapid growth as the world’s most populated Internet marketplace. The vast majority of these users will not be navigating the Internet in English. IDN domains will help drive brand identity, search patterns and Internet market behaviors online and offline. Navigating the Internet in one’s native language will be natural for the hundreds of millions of users coming online from China, Japan, Korea and around Asia. IDN will play an amplifying role in supporting increased search volume and improved search engine ranking results. While most web addresses today are still English alphanumeric, most of the searches are done in local languages. “Asia”, itself, is a highly searched and natural type-in keyword. Together with IDN, the “.Asia” web extension helps to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) organically. The “.Asia” domain provides improved relevance for websites to users searching from Asia as well as for Asia related information, bringing you closer to customers in Asia.

Character variants in IDN domains occur when two or more native characters share the same meaning or are linguistically deemed equivalent by local authorities. Such as in the case of Simplified and Traditional Chinese scripts. When registering for Chinese .Asia IDNs there is no need to register or purchase for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese scripts. Once the Simplified Chinese .Asia domain name is applied for, the equivalent Traditional Chinese .Asia variant will be given / included as part of the package, and vice versa.