Domain Market Trends 2026: What's Selling and Why
The global domain market hit 386.9 million registrations in 2025, new gTLDs grew nearly 30% year-over-year, and the aftermarket produced a record number of traded extensions. Here is what the data from the Global Domain Report 2026 tells domainers about where the market is heading.
Overall market size and growth
The Global Domain Report 2026, published by Sedo and InterNetX using Verisign Q4/2025 data, provides the clearest picture of where the market stands. The headline numbers show a market that has matured but remains dynamic.
386.9M
Total registered domains
+2.2%
Overall YoY growth
+29.9%
New gTLD YoY growth
+3.4%
ccTLD YoY growth
The overall +2.2% growth rate reflects a mature industry: the explosive registration surges of 2014–2016 and the COVID-era rebound are over. What remains is steady, competition-driven growth shaped by AI adoption, new gTLD expansion, and ongoing consolidation among registrars.
The most significant structural shift is happening at the extension level. Legacy gTLDs — .com, .net, .org — still form the backbone of the market but their dominance is slowly decreasing. New gTLDs now hold a 12.4% share of all registrations, up from essentially zero in 2014. .xyz and .top have entered the global top 10 TLD ranking for the first time.
A key 2025 catalyst was the surge of "vibe-coding" and no-code tools, which dramatically lowered the barrier to building a web presence. More projects launching means more domains registered — and more potential buyers entering the market.
Aftermarket: prices and volumes
The Sedo marketplace recorded a strong increase in activity in 2025, with transaction volumes rising significantly and 383 different TLDs traded — a record for extension diversity.
$2,753
Average sale price
Up from previous years — driven by premium .com and .ai transactions
$818
Median sale price
The typical transaction value — most trades happen in the $500–$2,000 range
$1,704
SedoMLS average
Registrar-distributed sales via SedoMLS — first year MLS dominated total volume
383
TLDs traded
Record number — confirms broader acceptance of alternative extensions
Price development was positive across the board. Average and median values both rose compared to 2024, pointing to stronger demand not just at the premium end but across the mid-range segment. .com continued to strengthen, and several European ccTLDs — .es, .eu, .co.uk — also recorded rising average values.
A structural shift is worth noting: 2025 was the first year that the majority of Sedo transactions were completed via SedoMLS partner channels (registrar integrations) rather than directly on Sedo's own marketplace. This means more buyers are discovering and purchasing domains at the point of registration — a trend that favors domains with broad registrar distribution.
Which extensions are growing
Not all extensions are moving in the same direction. Here is what the 2025 data shows for the most investor-relevant extensions.
.com added 5 million new registrations in absolute terms in 2025 — the highest absolute growth of any extension. It holds 41.6% of all global domain registrations and 48.5% of all developed websites. Average and median sale prices rose on Sedo. .com remains the benchmark.
.ai reached 1 million registrations in January 2026, up +66.9% YoY. It posted the highest average sale price of any extension on Sedo in 2025. The market has normalized from the 2022 speculative peak but is now driven by genuine end-user demand from AI companies.
.xyz added 4.2 million registrations in 2025 — second only to .com in absolute growth — and entered the global top 10 TLD ranking for the first time. A public sale above $287,000 demonstrated that premium .xyz names attract serious buyers.
.top added 2.7 million registrations and also entered the top 10 global TLD ranking for the first time. Its growth is driven by registrations in Asian markets. Aftermarket value remains limited for most names but volume signals growing adoption.
.net saw fewer high-value aftermarket transactions in 2025, with most sales concentrated in the lower five-figure range. Stable demand for infrastructure and technical use cases, but reduced premium pricing momentum compared to prior years.
.org added 0.5 million registrations and showed steady aftermarket activity on Sedo. Top public sales included lw.org at $95,000 and begin.org at $61,886. Consistent end-user and institutional interest, mostly in the mid to high five-figure range.
Data: Global Domain Report 2026 (Sedo/InterNetX), Verisign Q4/2025
Hottest keyword categories
Sedo's marketplace data tracks which keywords drive buyer search activity throughout the year. The 2025 picture is dominated by a small number of consistent themes.
Dominated keyword searches every single month of 2025. Appeared consistently at the top across industries far beyond core tech — legal, financial, medical, creative.
Remained a strong performer throughout 2025 despite market volatility. Finance and investment-related domain demand stayed resilient.
Online gaming and gambling domains maintained consistently strong buyer demand. Regulatory uncertainty in some markets has not reduced search activity.
Gained noticeable momentum in H2 2025. Reflects growing demand for domains tied to conversational AI, automation, and digital interaction.
The concentration of buyer interest in a small number of keyword categories has a practical implication: domains with these keywords in their name attract more inbound inquiries, more marketplace clicks, and faster sales. Domains without a clear keyword category face longer average time-to-sale regardless of extension.
Length and value: what the data shows
Sedo's 2025 price-by-length data confirms what experienced investors have long known, but puts concrete numbers behind it.
Median sale price by domain length — Sedo 2025
Relative scale — Source: Global Domain Report 2026, Sedo/InterNetX
One- and two-character domains command the highest median prices but are nearly impossible to acquire at reasonable cost. For practical domain investors, the 5–8 character range represents the mid-market sweet spot: long enough to be descriptive, short enough to be memorable and command a premium over longer names.
The two-letter .com median price development is particularly notable — Sedo's data shows a steady upward trend as the supply of quality two-letter .com names has essentially been exhausted. Every two-letter .com domain that exists was registered years or decades ago. This extreme scarcity floor supports prices regardless of individual keyword appeal.
The Buy Now shift
One of the most actionable findings from the 2025 data is the continued dominance of fixed-price transactions. This has direct implications for how domain investors should list their assets.
Buy Now
Make Offer
Auctions
Brokerage
Three in four domain sales in 2025 were completed at a fixed Buy Now price. The trend reflects a market increasingly driven by end users — buyers who want to acquire a domain quickly, know what it costs, and do not want to enter a negotiation. This is a different buyer psychology than the investor-to-investor transactions that dominated early aftermarket activity.
Brokerage sales account for only 3% of transactions but carry disproportionate monetary weight — high-value domains still require expert negotiation and tailored deal structures. For the vast majority of portfolio domains, however, a well-priced Buy Now listing on multiple marketplaces outperforms a "make offer" listing in both speed and final price.
What it means for domain investors
The 2025–2026 data points to a set of concrete implications for anyone buying, selling, or holding domains.
.com is not dying — it is concentrating
Despite growing competition from new gTLDs, .com added more absolute registrations than any other extension in 2025 and strengthened its aftermarket price position. The narrative that .com is being displaced by alternatives is not supported by the data. What is true is that the best .com names are increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, which raises the floor price for quality names.
New gTLDs have structural relevance but thin aftermarkets
At 12.4% market share and +29.9% YoY growth, new gTLDs are no longer experimental. But survey data shows 35% of domain professionals do not own any new gTLD names, and only 9% expect new gTLDs to outperform .com on resale. The opportunity in new gTLDs is in identifying the few extensions with genuine buyer pools (.xyz, .shop, .app) rather than speculating broadly.
AI keyword demand is real and broad
AI-related domains were the #1 buyer search category every month of 2025, across verticals. This is not a tech-sector phenomenon — legal, financial, healthcare, and creative buyers are all seeking AI-branded domains. The premium for short, clear AI-related names is supported by genuine end-user demand, not speculation.
Short names retain their premium regardless of extension
The price-by-length data is clear: brevity is the most durable value driver in the aftermarket. Investors who focus on acquiring short, clean names — even in extensions other than .com — are building a portfolio with structural value that does not depend on keyword trends.
Price your domain and make it easy to buy
76% Buy Now dominance means that buyers in 2025 strongly preferred knowing the price upfront. A domain with no visible price loses a significant share of potential buyers before they ever make contact. A custom lander with a clear asking price and a contact form is the minimum viable sales infrastructure for any domain you are actively trying to sell.
Data in this article is sourced from the Global Domain Report 2026, published by Sedo GmbH and InterNetX GmbH, using registration data from Verisign Q4/2025 and aftermarket transaction data from the Sedo marketplace.
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