.老字号
Is .老字号 a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .老字号, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
A meaningful Chinese term for heritage brands, but the buyer pool is tiny and Chinese businesses rarely use Chinese-character web addresses.
long-established Chinese heritage brands (the "time-honored brand" category) and the cultural-commerce platforms, museums, and marketing campaigns built around them, almost entirely in mainland China
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round; a Chinese-script IDN (“heritage brand”, A-label xn--rpr94orm7a). Their catalog line: “The names trusted for generations.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a Chinese-script commerce noun that names a credential rather than a topic, sold to established brand owners whose eligibility is proven by an external registry, so the TLD's value is the verified badge, not the vocabulary.
Same bet in a different market: the string is a protected designation administered by an authority, registration is gated on actually holding the title, and the domain functions as portable proof of membership for the holder's primary identity.
Same bet as a certification-mark TLD — a recognized standard applied to a merchant's goods where buyers only care because a third party attests to it, and the whole proposition collapses if anyone can register.
What a .老字号 domain is
.老字号 is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody is chasing .老字号 today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .老字号 domain extension real yet?
.老字号 is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .老字号 domain?
You can’t yet. A .老字号 name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .老字号 was .商标, delegated on 22 May 2014.
Is .老字号 a real TLD?
Not yet. .老字号 is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .老字号 and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.老字号 (heritage brand) · Culture & Civic · “The names trusted for generations.””Journey To The West Corporation
- 老字号 is a recognized cultural concept in China tied to an official heritage-brand designation, which gives the string genuine resonance but also narrows the credible registrant pool to a small set of old, conservative firms that already anchor their identity on .com/.cn ASCII domains. By analogy, Chinese-script IDN TLDs such as .公司, .网络 and .中国 have seen registrations but little sustained primary-identity use, since Chinese users overwhelmingly navigate via apps, search and super-app ecosystems rather than typing han-character URLs — I expect the same dynamic here, flagged as analogy. Some defensive and campaign-driven registrations are plausible over the next 5 years, but a real aftermarket is unlikely. I place it in the 10-29 band: above 1-9 because an identifiable, brand-conscious buyer group exists, but below 30-49 because neither volume registrations nor a credible brand signal is likely without official backing. Main market uncertainty: whether the government/industry bodies that administer the heritage-brand designation would endorse or promote the namespace to certified brands, which could convert a vanity string into a semi-official registry.