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| đ Image | |
| Introduced | November 18, 2014 (General Availability) |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Generic top-level domain (gTLD) |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | .top registry |
| Sponsor | Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co., Ltd. |
| Registered domains | 2,066,084 (24 January 2023)[1] |
| Registry website | nic.top/en |
.top is a generic top-level domain, officially delegated in ICANN's new gTLD program on August 4, 2014.
The domain name extension .top is managed and operated by the .top registry (registry backend ZDNS) which belongs to Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology Co., Ltd. in Nanjing, China, and can be registered by anyone since November 18, 2014 without special requirements. The original marketed intent of the .top TLD is for businesses to convey that they are the 'top' or the best of their industry.[2]
A second level domain under the top-level domain (TLD) .top can consist of digits, letters, hyphens and specific special characters while it can have a length of one up to (a maximum of) 63 characters. Like most other TLDs, it can be registered for a period of at least one year up to (a maximum of) 10 years in advance. The private registration (WHOIS privacy) of .top domains is supported, as is the ability to register internationalized domain names (IDNs), which include the character sets Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
On 16 July 2024 ICANN issued a Notice Of Breach to the registry for failing to respond to DNS abuse reports and failing to pay fees.[3]
Development
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- June 20, 2011, ICANN officially announced that the application for new gTLDs was to open in 2012.
- April 11, 2012, the application was submitted online. On June 9, 2012, it appeared on the ICANN public list.
- March 20, 2013, it passed initial evaluation.
- March 20, 2014, the registry signed a contract with ICANN.
- August 5, 2014, the domain entered the root zone of ICANN new gTLD.
- October 15, 2014, it entered its sunrise period.
- November 18, 2014, .top domains could be registered openly. Registration volume exceeded 10,000 on the first day.
- April 24, 2015, .top was put on record with Chinese national government department MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology).[4][5]
- January 2016, .top released its IDN domains, supporting Arabic, Chinese (traditional + simplified), French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. The availability can be checked by .top whois.[6]
Issues
[edit]As of 2023, .top domains are often used for malware and phishing,[7][8] and the TLD is included in the list of those banned for some antimalware vendors such as Malwarebytes.[9] .top is blocked by default by Snort rules.[10]
References
[edit]- ^ nTLD stats. greenSec GmbH.
- ^ "Cheapest .top Domain Registration, Renewal, Transfer Prices | TLD-List". tld-list.com. Retrieved 2025-07-17.
- ^ "RE: NOTICE OF BREACH OF REGISTRY AGREEMENT" (PDF). icann.org. ICANN. Retrieved 29 July 2025.
- ^ "俥ćŻćĺĄ". MIIT (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 8 November 2008. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
- ^ "Why is .TOP domain one of the only FOUR new gTLDs approved to be built website with in China?". .Top Domains. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
- ^ "Whois". .Top Domains. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
- ^ "Phish-Friendly Domain Registry ".top" Put on Notice". Krebs on Security. 2024-07-23. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
- ^ "From .com to .beauty: The evolving threat landscape of unwanted email". The Cloudflare Blog. 2024-03-26. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
- ^ "Malwarebytes Browser Guard Settings screen". Malwarebytes Support. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
- ^ "INDICATOR-COMPROMISE Suspicious .top dns query". Retrieved 29 April 2019.
External links
[edit]
- CS1 Chinese-language sources (zh)
- Articles to be expanded from August 2024
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Articles needing cleanup from August 2020
- All pages needing cleanup
- Articles with sections that need to be turned into prose from August 2020
- Articles needing additional references from October 2020
- All articles needing additional references