A top-level domain (TLD) can be defined as the last segment of a domain name or the part that follows immediately after the “dot” symbol. TLDs are mainly classified into two categories: generic TLDs (such as .com, .org, .edu) and country-specific TLDs (such as .us, .uk, .au).
Coming to XN—54B7FTA0CC, it may seem different from common TLDs, and that’s because it’s an Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain (IDN ccTLD). In simpler words, it’s a domain name that includes characters not found in the English alphabet. This allows internet users the ability to access domain names in their own language. These non-ASCII characters include Latin letters with diacritics and characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, Greek, Russian, Chinese, etc.
Regarding the specific TLD you asked about, .XN—54B7FTA0CC, it corresponds to Bangladesh’s IDN ccTLD. The punycode “XN—54B7FTA0CC” is derived from “বাংলা”, which is Bangla/Bengali for ‘Bengal’. So, websites with this TLD target the Bangladeshi community.
The usage of such unique TLDs became possible due to the implementation of IDNA (Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications) system. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which supervises the entire domain name system, launched the IDNA system in 2003. A highlight of this system is Punycode – a method that enables the conversion of Unicode strings into the limited character set permitted by IDNA (A-Z, 0-9 and hyphen).
Using Punycode, the Unicode string “বাংলা” is represented as “XN—54B7FTA0CC”. This mechanism has significantly impacted the internet’s universality, allowing non-English users to navigate more easily in their native language.
In conclusion, “xn—54b7fta0cc” is an example of a non-ASCII TLD, specifically for Bangladesh. The advent of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) has paved the way for an increased internet penetration in non-English speaking communities worldwide.
For example, Japanese internet company, Internet Initiative Japan, uses the IDN ccTLD “.みんな” which translates to “.everyone” and Alibabac Group Holding Ltd. registered TLDs such as “.阿里巴巴” and.“大众汽车” which translate to “.alibaba” and “.volkswagen” respectively.
References:
1. ICANN. (n.d.). IDN TLDs. Indian Domain Names. https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/tlds-21-2018-12-05-en
2. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. (n.d.). .xn—54b7fta0cc. Root Zone Database. https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/xn—54b7fta0cc.html
3. IDC, David Fowler, “The Power of IDN ccTLDs”, https://www.centr.org/news/blog/the-power-of-idn-cctlds.html
4. ICANNWiki, Internationalized Domain Name, https://icannwiki.org/Internationalized_Domain_Name.
