Domain Name Trends: What's Changing in 2026

The domain name game has changed. What worked five years ago doesn't work today. Companies are making different choices, and the reasons are mostly economic and cultural.

.com Scarcity Is Real

Short, memorable .com domains are effectively gone. The decent ones sell for five or six figures minimum. The premium ones go for seven or eight. This isn't speculation anymore. The data backs it up.

Most single-word .coms were registered decades ago. Two-word combinations that make sense are increasingly rare. Three-word domains work but lack the punch most brands want. The math is simple: there are only so many combinations of letters that form memorable words, and most of them are taken.

This scarcity has created a thriving aftermarket. Domains that were registered for $10 in 2005 now trade for thousands or more. The aftermarket has matured with professional brokers, escrow services, and domain investment funds. For startups with limited budgets, paying $50,000 for a domain often isn't realistic.

Alternative TLDs Have Gone Mainstream

Five years ago, using anything other than .com was seen as second-tier. That perception has shifted. Major companies now proudly use alternative TLDs as part of their brand identity.

Notion uses notion.so. Linear uses linear.app. Grab uses grab.com for corporate but grab.app for their app. These aren't companies that couldn't afford the .com. They chose alternatives because they work.

The .io extension became the default for developer tools and SaaS products. It signals tech credibility. The .ai extension exploded with the AI boom, with companies paying premium prices for short .ai domains. The .co extension has shed its "we couldn't get the .com" stigma.

Country-code TLDs are being repurposed. .ai belongs to Anguilla but nobody thinks about that when they see an AI company using it. .io is technically British Indian Ocean Territory. .co is Colombia. Users don't care about the original intent. They care about what the extension communicates.

The .ai Surge

The AI boom created overnight demand for .ai domains. Companies scrambled to rebrand or launch with .ai addresses. Prices for premium .ai domains shot up faster than almost any other extension in recent history.

This wasn't just startups. Established companies added .ai properties for their AI products. The extension became shorthand for "we do AI," which is exactly what many companies wanted to signal.

The .ai surge demonstrates how quickly domain trends can shift based on technology trends. When a new category emerges, the domain market reacts. Whoever controls the relevant extensions benefits. Anguilla's domain registry has seen a windfall from .ai registrations that have nothing to do with the island itself.

Trust Barriers Are Falling

Users used to distrust non-.com domains. That distrust came from phishing concerns and unfamiliarity. The web felt safer when everything was .com or .org.

That's changed. People navigate to notion.so without hesitation. They click linear.app links without suspicion. The proliferation of alternative TLDs has normalized them. Users have adapted.

This shift matters because it removes the main psychological barrier that kept companies chained to .com. If users don't care, why pay a premium for .com when a better name is available on another extension?

Security indicators have also evolved. Modern browsers don't treat .com differently from other valid TLDs in terms of visual trust signals. SSL certificates work the same way. Email deliverability issues that plagued some alternative TLDs have been resolved as email providers updated their filtering logic.

Domain Hoarding Is Declining

The domain hoarding playbook used to be simple: register everything vaguely related to your industry, sit on it for years, maybe develop one or two. This created massive domain portfolios that mostly went unused.

That's becoming less common. Companies are registering domains closer to when they actually need them. The registration-to-use timeline has compressed. Holding costs add up, and with thousands of new TLDs, defensive registration of every variant is impractical.

This means more domains are available when you actually look. The secondary market has inventory, but it's not all locked up by squatters hoping for a payday. Real availability has improved, especially on alternative TLDs where speculation is lower.

Tools like Vacant Domains make it easier to find domains that were registered but abandoned. As holding becomes less attractive, more quality domains return to the available pool.

Brandable Nonsense Words Work

Companies have embraced made-up words. Figma. Vercel. Supabase. Zeplin. These aren't real words. They're brandable nonsense that's easy to trademark and usually available as a domain.

This trend accelerated because real words are taken. But it's also a branding choice. Made-up words don't carry baggage. They're a blank slate. You can define what they mean.

The willingness to use invented words has opened up domain possibilities. You're not limited to dictionary words and their combinations. You can create something unique that's actually available at a reasonable price.

Geographic TLDs For Local Presence

Companies targeting specific regions are increasingly using country-code TLDs. A .uk domain signals British presence. A .de domain signals German presence. This isn't new, but the practice is growing.

US companies have been slower to adopt this because .com is so dominant domestically. But international expansion often involves local domains now. It's a trust signal for users in those markets.

Some companies run hybrid strategies: global marketing on .com, local sales on country-specific TLDs. The technical overhead of managing multiple domains has decreased, making this more practical.

What These Domain Name Trends Mean For New Projects

If you're starting something new, you have options. You're not locked into finding an available .com or paying a fortune for a mediocre one.

Consider alternative TLDs seriously. Look at what successful companies in your space are using. If half of them are on .io or .app, that's a viable path.

Be open to brandable invented words. Run them past people. Make sure they're pronounceable and not awkward in other languages. But don't dismiss them just because they're not dictionary words.

Check recently expired or abandoned domains. Services like Vacant Domains track domains that companies registered but never developed. Sometimes the perfect name is sitting there, previously registered but now available.

The domain name landscape has shifted. The rules that applied ten years ago don't apply today. Understanding current domain name trends gives you more options and potentially saves you significant money. The .com monopoly is over. Act accordingly.