Domain Trends 2026: What's Hot, What's Not, and What's Next

Every year, someone predicts the death of .com. Every year, they're wrong. But that doesn't mean nothing changes.

2025 was weird. AI exploded, crypto collapsed (again), and somehow .xyz domains became almost respectable. Let's look at what actually happened and where things are heading.

The .com Reality Check

Yes, all the good .coms are taken. Have been for years.

But here's the thing: .com still commands the highest resale prices, the most trust, and the best email deliverability. That hasn't changed.

What has changed:

• Good .coms now routinely sell for €50k-500k
• Startups are more willing to use alternatives
• Brand protection still requires owning the .com even if you don't use it

My take: If you can get the .com for under €10k and it matches your brand, just buy it. The alternative is explaining your weird domain to everyone forever.

New TLDs That Actually Worked

Most new TLDs flopped. Nobody wants yourbusiness.pizza or startup.guru.

But a few found real niches:

.ai

Obviously. Every AI startup wants a .ai domain. Prices have gone insane. A decent .ai that would've cost €50 in 2022 is now €500-5000.

The irony: .ai is actually Anguilla's country code. They're making a fortune from Silicon Valley.

Worth it? For AI companies, yes. The association is strong. For everyone else, it looks like you're trying to ride a trend.

.io

Still popular with tech startups, though the shine has faded slightly. Good for developer tools, APIs, SaaS products.

Fun fact: .io belongs to British Indian Ocean Territory, which technically doesn't exist as a sovereign nation. There's ongoing debate about what happens to .io domains when the territory is fully returned to Mauritius.

.app and .dev

Google's contributions to the TLD space. Both require HTTPS by default, which is nice. .dev is everywhere in the developer community now.

.co

Still going strong as the "startup .com alternative." Colombia's gift to entrepreneurs. Trustworthy enough that major companies use it.

What Flopped

.web3 and crypto TLDs

Remember when everyone was buying .eth and .crypto domains on the blockchain? Most of those are worthless now. The problem: they don't work in normal browsers without plugins. That's a dealbreaker for actual businesses.

Generic industry TLDs

.lawyer, .dentist, .restaurant - never caught on. People don't type those. They Google "dentist near me" and click the first result, regardless of domain.

Geographic TLDs

.berlin, .nyc, .paris - limited appeal. Useful for hyper-local businesses, but that's a small market.

AI-Related Domain Trends

The AI boom created some interesting patterns:

What's selling

• Anything with "AI" in the name
• ChatGPT misspellings (seriously)
• [Industry]+AI combinations (legalai.com, healthai.com, etc.)
• Agent-related domains (aiagent.com, agentflow.io)

The speculation bubble

Domainers rushed to register anything AI-related in 2023-2024. Most of those registrations won't renew. The market is cooling.

Good AI domains still command premiums, but garbage like "best-ai-chatbot-2024.com" is worthless.

What I'd buy

Short, memorable .ai domains if you can find them under €1000. Generic AI+industry terms on .com. Anything related to AI agents specifically.

Market Predictions

Here's where I'll probably be wrong, but let's try:

Prices will stratify further

Premium domains keep getting more expensive. Average domains stay flat. Bad domains become worthless.

The middle is disappearing. Either you have a valuable asset or you're paying €10/year to keep something nobody wants.

.com alternatives become more accepted

Not as primary domains for major brands, but for startups, side projects, and creator businesses.

The generation starting companies now grew up with the internet. They care less about .com than people who remember when it was the only option.

More consolidation in registrars

The domain industry has too many players. Expect acquisitions. Tucows, GoDaddy, and a few others will get bigger. Smaller registrars will disappear or merge.

AI will change domain search

Typing URLs is already declining. Voice search and AI assistants are taking over.

"Alexa, order from Domino's" doesn't care if it's dominos.com or dominos.pizza.

This doesn't mean domains stop mattering. But how people find your domain is changing.

Investment Opportunities (and Risks)

Should you invest in domains? Depends.

Good bets

• Exact match .coms in growing industries
• Short, memorable .ai domains
• Portfolio building with renewal cost under €1k/year
• Domains you'd actually use if they don't sell

Bad bets

• Crypto/NFT related domains (that wave passed)
• Long-tail keyword domains (SEO value is minimal now)
• Anything requiring "the next trend" to make it valuable
• Large portfolios with high renewal costs

The math

A €500 domain that sits for 3 years at €15/year renewal costs €545 total. You need to sell it for €1000+ to make a reasonable return.

Most domains don't sell at all. The few that do subsidize the rest. It's a hits-driven business.

What Smart Companies Are Doing

Brand protection at scale

Big companies now register their brand across 50+ TLDs. Not because they'll use them, but to prevent squatters.

Tesla owns tesla.everything. Apple probably has more domains than employees.

Defensive registrations

If you're launching a product called "Flux," you're registering flux.com, getflux.com, fluxapp.com, flux.io, flux.ai, and probably useflux.com for good measure.

Costs maybe €500/year total. Prevents headaches later.

Alternative TLDs for campaigns

Nike might use nike.com for their main site but nike.run for a running-specific campaign. The TLD becomes part of the message.

My Actual Advice

If you're a business:

• Get the .com if possible
• Get the .com even if you use something else
• Protect your brand across major TLDs
• Don't overthink it beyond that

If you're investing:

• Start small
• Focus on quality over quantity
• Don't speculate on trends
• Be prepared to hold for years

If you're starting a project:

• Pick something memorable
• .com > .io > .co > country-specific
• Avoid hyphens and numbers
• Your domain matters less than your product

The Boring Truth

Domains still matter, but less than they used to. Great companies have succeeded with terrible domains (Google started as backrub.com). Terrible companies have failed with great domains.

The trend is toward discoverability through other channels: social media, search, app stores, AI assistants. Your domain is your address, but increasingly, people are navigating through intermediaries.

Focus on building something worth finding. The domain is just the address people use once they already care.