diff --git a/app/models/topic.rb b/app/models/topic.rb
index b6138ac975b..3561ffbc5b0 100644
--- a/app/models/topic.rb
+++ b/app/models/topic.rb
@@ -1273,7 +1273,7 @@ SQL
   end
 
   def featured_link_root_domain
-    MiniSuffix.domain(URI.parse(self.featured_link).hostname)
+    MiniSuffix.domain(URI.parse(URI.encode(self.featured_link)).hostname)
   end
 
   private
diff --git a/spec/models/topic_spec.rb b/spec/models/topic_spec.rb
index 7134b101343..14a42e3406f 100644
--- a/spec/models/topic_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/models/topic_spec.rb
@@ -2101,6 +2101,7 @@ describe Topic do
       "https://meta.discourse.org",
       "https://meta.discourse.org/",
       "https://meta.discourse.org/?filter=test",
+      "https://meta.discourse.org/t/中國/1",
     ].each do |featured_link|
       it "should extract the root domain from #{featured_link} correctly" do
         topic.featured_link = featured_link