A top-level domain (TLD) signifies the last segment of a domain name, which is usually the part located after the final dot in the web address. Some common examples of a TLD include “.com”, “.org”, “.gov”, and so on.
The TLD “xn—gk3at1e” is part of the Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in Applications standards. According to the ICANN, “Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are domain names represented in local language characters”. These domain names are useful for languages using non-Latin scripts.
To facilitate these non-English characters, an ASCII compatible encoding method called Punycode is used, which is designed to represent Unicode within the limited character subset allowed in network host names by software like DNS. This is because the DNS was originally set up to only handle a limited character set.
“xn—gk3at1e” is an example of an encoded IDN TLD, commonly known as a Punycode domain. The “xn—” part is the ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) prefix used for Punycode strings. This prefix is an indicator that the domain name contains Punycode encoded Unicode characters.
To understand what “xn—gk3at1e” stands for in its native script, it will need to be decoded. For example, using a Punycode converter such as punycoder.com, it has been found that “xn—gk3at1e” signifies “健康” after converting back to its original Chinese characters, which can translate to “health” or “healthy” in English.
To generate and decode Punycode TLDs, there are many different tools available such as PunnyCoder (punnycoder.com), Punycode Converter (punycoder.com), and others.
Sources of information and examples:
1. ICANN Internationalized Domain Names (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/idn-2012-02-25-en)
2. RFC 3492 – Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3492)
3. Verisign’s IDN Conversion Tool (https://www.verisign.com/en\_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/idn/idn-conversion-tool/index.xhtml)
4. PunnyCoder – Punycode converter (https://www.punycoder.com)
