The top-level domain (TLD) you referenced “XN—XKC2DL3A5EE0H” is what’s known as an Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD). This particular ccTLD is for India and is written in the Tamil language.
An Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) is an internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. They are created to allow Internet users to access domain names in their own language and character set (source: ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
The ccTLD you mentioned, XN—XKC2DL3A5EE0H, is represented in Punycode, which is a way to represent Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) that use characters outside of the ASCII character set, so they can be used with software and protocols that only understand ASCII. The part after ‘XN—’ is the Punycode string, translating to “இந்தியா” in Unicode, which means India in Tamil.
The existence of such ccTLDs allows for more internet users worldwide to navigate the web in their native language and script, thereby eliminating barriers to information and communication and fostering global internet use (source: RFC 5891, on the subject of Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol).
The advantages of using these specific ccTLDs include better localized SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as search engines generally give preference to local ccTLDs in search results in specific countries.
To provide a couple of examples of internationalized ccTLDs, consider “XN—WGBL6A” which represents Qatar in Arabic, and “XN—J1AMH” which represents Ukraine in Cyrillic alphabet.
It’s essential to mention that the registration of such ccTLDs is overseen by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), who in turn delegate such to registrars like Godaddy, BigRock, and so forth.
In conclusion, the ccTLD “XN—XKC2DL3A5EE0H” is the representation for India in Tamil language, allowing a more global and inclusive use of the internet by providing accessibility to Internet users whose native language employs non-ASCII character sets.
For constructing this response, the following resources were referred to:
ICANN Website, Punycode Wikipedia page, RFC 5891 document on Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol, and National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) website.
