IDN (Internationalized Domain Names) allow domain names in national alphabets — Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and others.
How IDN Works
The browser displays the domain in Cyrillic. Internally it's converted to Punycode for DNS servers:
пример.рф → xn--e1afmapc.xn--p1ai⚠️ IDN Homograph Attacks: Cyrillic characters look identical to Latin ones (а vs a). Attackers register look-alike phishing domains using mixed scripts.
💡 Practical advice: Most successful international sites use standard Latin domains. IDN is a niche tool — useful for purely local audiences who don't type in Latin.