The top-level domain (TLD) “xn—55qx5d” represents the internationalized domain name (IDN) TLD for “公司”. This translates to “company” or “business” in English, and is primarily used in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. IDNs are domain names that are represented by local language characters.
The “xn—55qx5d” was approved by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which is responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that every address is unique and that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. ICANN’s detailed list of IDN TLDs shows “xn—55qx5d” as an approved TLD. In their system, the IDN TLDs are encoded using the Punycode algorithm under the xn— format, following the rules prescribed by the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) protocol.
The “xn—55qx5d” TLD is owned by Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CNNIC), the administrative agency responsible for Internet affairs under the Ministry of Information Industry of the People’s Republic of China. Part of their responsibility is to operate and administrate national domain name registry of “.CN” and Chinese Domain Name (CDN) system.
Several companies are using this TLD to target Chinese-speaking customers. For example, one of China’s largest e-commerce platforms, Alibaba Group, uses the domain name “阿里巴巴.公司” (alibaba.xn—55qx5d), and Baidu, China’s largest search engine, uses “百度.公司” (baidu.xn—55qx5d).
Given the growth of Chinese internet users and the prominence of e-commerce within the country, the domain is seeing a significant increase in utilization. Additionally, by using a TLD that is familiar and easily recognized by Chinese users, businesses are potentially improving their brand visibility and credibility within the Chinese market.
Sources:
1. ICANN. “IDN TLDs”. ICANN. https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt.
2. Computer Network Information Center (CNNIC). “About CN”. CNNIC. http://www1.cnnic.cn/IS/Base/AJFW/.
3. Alibaba Group. “Alibaba Official Site”. Alibaba. https://阿里巴巴.公司/.
4. Baidu. “Baidu Official Site”. Baidu. https://百度.公司/.
