Note the accent mark in this domain name.
A domain industry friend was in Austin this morning and we met up for breakfast. When scheduling a place to meet, I googled the name of a local bakery to get its details. I did a double take when I saw its domain name:
Notice the accent mark above café?
This is technically the internationalized domain name xn--sanfranciscobakeryandcaf-yfc.com
I was surprised to see a restaurant adopt an IDN. I wonder if they copied-and-pasted their name into the registrar search box when they chose the domain. (I tried to talk to the owner this morning but he was too busy making pastries.)
I doubt this restaurant has many people typing in its domain name. If they did, few people would land on the website because most wouldn’t include the accent. To be honest, it seems that domains are an afterthought for this business. A shorter domain printed on the bakery’s menu has expired and, when you search on Google, a Weebly subdomain site also pops up.
Clearly, this restaurant isn’t too worried about its web presence. It’s been around for a while and counts on repeat business.
Still, I thought it was interesting to see a U.S. restaurant using an IDN.