diff --git a/src/parseDomain.js b/src/parseDomain.js
index 3dbbd06..de42ebd 100644
--- a/src/parseDomain.js
+++ b/src/parseDomain.js
@@ -62,8 +62,13 @@ function parseDomain(url, options) {
 
     const normalizedOptions = normalize.options(options);
 
-    // urlSplit can't be null because urlParts will always match at the third capture
     urlSplit = normalizedUrl.match(urlParts);
+
+    // urlSplit is null if the url contains certain characters like '\n', '\r'.
+    if (urlSplit === null) {
+        return null;
+    }
+
     domain = urlSplit[3]; // domain will now be something like sub.domain.example.com
 
     tld = matchTld(domain, normalizedOptions);
diff --git a/test/parseDomain.test.js b/test/parseDomain.test.js
index 5d5154c..e87d287 100644
--- a/test/parseDomain.test.js
+++ b/test/parseDomain.test.js
@@ -146,6 +146,15 @@ describe("parseDomain(url)", () => {
         expect(parseDomain("\xa0")).to.equal(null);
     });
 
+    it("should return null if the given value contains invalid characters", () => {
+        expect(parseDomain("http://hell.d\ne.ibm.com")).to.equal(null);
+        expect(parseDomain("\xa0")).to.equal(null);
+    });
+
+    it("should return null if the given is an empty string with a space character", () => {
+        expect(parseDomain(" ")).to.equal(null);
+    });
+
     it("should work with domains that could match multiple tlds", () => {
         expect(parseDomain("http://hello.de.ibm.com")).to.eql({
             subdomain: "hello.de",