September 2026 Domain Lifecycle Intelligence:
- New registrations rose 3.37% in a month one day shorter. Most of the gain was .xyz, on the same pattern as August; without .xyz, the market rose 0.90%.
- We revisited three technology-linked keywords from our weekly reports. The follow-up showed little sign of widespread end-user adoption, and two of the three are fading.
- Superintelligence recorded its highest weekly total, although daily registrations had fallen from the September 29 peak. Brand names taken under .si at the start of the wave are worth watching.
- The active pool across 1,107 gTLDs grew 0.96% in September, to 256,811,706 domains.
- 8,712,664 domains entered expiry in September, 6.75% more than in August.
- 4,078,404 domains were deleted in September, 5.99% fewer than in August.
- mogul.com, at $1,300,000, was the month’s only seven-figure sale.
- Transfers in the tracked premium set doubled, but half of them came on a single day.
1. New Registrations
We recorded 9,229,340 newly registered domains across monitored gTLDs in September 2026, up +300,872 or 3.37% from August’s 8,928,468.
Tracked Extensions
| TLD | August | September | Change | MoM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 4,167,954 | 4,284,051 | +116,097 | +2.79% |
| .net | 257,136 | 237,439 | -19,697 | -7.66% |
| .org | 259,918 | 243,202 | -16,716 | -6.43% |
| .xyz | 1,192,961 | 1,424,342 | +231,381 | +19.40% |
| .app | 118,701 | 121,136 | +2,435 | +2.05% |
| .dev | 35,282 | 38,237 | +2,955 | +8.38% |
| .bot | 1,042 | 911 | -131 | -12.57% |
| .online | 251,196 | 278,048 | +26,852 | +10.69% |
| .lol | 47,718 | 76,026 | +28,308 | +59.32% |
August figures restated on the latest data.
.xyz supplied 77% of the month’s net gain. As in August, one registrar handled 86.0% of its names and 87.0% used marketplace nameservers on day one.
Three Waves, Rechecked
We revisited three technology-linked keywords tracked in our recent weekly reports. muse rose about three weeks after Meta’s Muse releases, mostly through resale channels (September 1, September 8). jev jumped the day after TypeSafe AI announced its first model (September 22). superintelligence rose on September 22, when President Trump told the UN that US government documents would call AI “super intelligence”, and again on September 29, when an executive order directed executive departments and agencies to use the term in their documents and communications (September 29). On October 5 we checked each of these .com names again.
| Word | Names | Changed nameservers | Onto a marketplace | Onto a hosting platform | Mailbox in place | Latest week vs peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| muse | 8,812 | 2,833 | 1,370 | 47 | 222 | -50% |
| jev | 1,435 | 185 | 99 | 26 | 17 | -95% |
| superintelligence | 2,703 | 426 | 159 | 8 | 7 | Highest week |
.com names registered August 7 to October 4, 2026, rechecked October 5. “Latest week” is September 28 to October 4.
The jev names registered last looked the most like use: in the final week, 7.4% went to marketplace nameservers and 38.9% to hosting platforms, against 31.1% and 10.6% in the first.
What the Waves Mean
News can start a wave, but on its own it rarely sustains one. The names registered around a launch or a headline sit mostly on marketplace and registrar nameservers, and the wave tends to fade unless more follows: more news, better technology, and people using what the word names.
| Day-one nameservers, .com | Marketplace | Hosting platform |
|---|---|---|
| All new .com registrations, September | 1.7% | 28.5% |
| agent, agents, agentic, September | 19.4% | 22.7% |
| jev, August 7 to October 4 | 28.4% | 15.5% |
| superintelligence, same period | 33.3% | 4.0% |
| muse, same period | 61.9% | 5.7% |
Domain registrations tend to run at the leading edge of a technology trend. Domain flippers often hand-register a name hoping for a high return, but they often get caught up in FOMO. A real technology trend takes many participants to form, and that often means a long wait, something very common in domain investing.
Superintelligence now has the world’s attention. If more companies and more policy follow, its names may find more support than most naming waves; whether that attention translates into sustained registrations or actual use remains to be seen. At the same time, many brand names were registered under .si as soon as the wave began. Whether they are meant for phishing, held in the hope of an acquisition, or something else will take follow-up evidence to tell, and they are worth watching over the long term.
2. Active Domain Pool
We track 1,107 gTLDs. Together they went from 254,360,516 active domains on September 1 to 256,811,706 on September 30, a net gain of +2,451,190 or +0.96%. This month we look more closely at the gTLDs with more than one million active domains.
| TLD | Sep 1 | Sep 30 | Change | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 165,887,363 | 167,001,714 | +1,114,351 | +0.67% |
| .net | 12,372,927 | 12,413,535 | +40,608 | +0.33% |
| .org | 12,113,654 | 12,163,985 | +50,331 | +0.42% |
| .xyz | 9,597,212 | 10,232,307 | +635,095 | +6.62% |
| .top | 6,296,360 | 6,288,521 | -7,839 | -0.12% |
| .info | 5,229,603 | 5,170,168 | -59,435 | -1.14% |
| .shop | 4,367,595 | 4,332,058 | -35,537 | -0.81% |
| .online | 3,499,912 | 3,570,012 | +70,100 | +2.00% |
| .store | 2,072,637 | 2,082,700 | +10,063 | +0.49% |
| .vip | 1,904,888 | 1,943,807 | +38,919 | +2.04% |
| .site | 1,877,587 | 1,918,897 | +41,310 | +2.20% |
| .app | 1,603,029 | 1,681,844 | +78,815 | +4.92% |
| .biz | 1,282,712 | 1,302,706 | +19,994 | +1.56% |
| .bond | 1,168,878 | 1,173,748 | +4,870 | +0.42% |
| .pro | 1,146,880 | 1,140,574 | -6,306 | -0.55% |
| .lol | 1,071,456 | 1,109,759 | +38,303 | +3.57% |
| .sbs | 1,096,041 | 1,083,756 | -12,285 | -1.12% |
| These 17 | 232,588,734 | 234,610,091 | +2,021,357 | +0.87% |
Most of these TLDs grew in September. .com stays far out in front, and .app kept up its strong growth.
Active counts for nearly all TLDs in our database are on DomainKits Data.
3. Expired Domains
A total of 8,712,664 gTLD domains were first observed entering expiry in September 2026, an average of 290,422 per day across 576 extensions, up 6.75% from August’s 8,162,115.
| TLD | Entered expiry | Share | August share |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 3,738,182 | 42.91% | 47.90% |
| .xyz | 1,369,050 | 15.71% | 11.05% |
| .top | 775,685 | 8.90% | 9.12% |
| .net | 220,397 | 2.53% | 2.78% |
| .info | 213,228 | 2.45% | 2.31% |
| All other extensions | 2,396,122 | 27.50% | 26.84% |
| Total | 8,712,664 | 100.00% |
Domains first judged expired in September and still in the exit path on October 5. Names deleted, renewed or re-registered before then are not counted, so the figure is a floor.
Individual names can be searched in DomainKits expired search.
4. Deleted Domains
We recorded 4,078,404 gTLD domains completing the cycle and being deleted in September 2026, an average of 135,947 per day, down 5.99% from August’s 4,338,202.
| TLD | Deleted | Share | August share |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 2,035,727 | 49.91% | 48.75% |
| .top | 309,321 | 7.58% | 8.83% |
| .xyz | 238,697 | 5.85% | 4.36% |
| .online | 134,510 | 3.30% | 2.55% |
| .info | 127,759 | 3.13% | 2.86% |
| All other extensions | 1,232,390 | 30.22% | 32.65% |
| Total | 4,078,404 | 100.00% |
Names deleted in September and registered again before October 5 are no longer visible as deleted, so the figure is a floor. 4,659 records first seen deleted more than 180 days after expiry are excluded as observed late.
Recently deleted names can be searched in DomainKits deleted search.
5. Market and Industry News
Market
Five September sales that stood out:
| Domain | Price | Recorded | Venue as recorded | Why it stands out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mogul.com | $1,300,000 | Sep 28 | Not disclosed | The month’s only seven-figure sale |
| relationships.com | $226,000 | Sep 19 | GoDaddy | A plain English word |
| predict.xyz | $148,795 | Sep 1 | Afternic | A six-figure .xyz |
| jev.ai | $44,995 | Sep 15 | Atom.com | The name of the model TypeSafe AI launched that week |
| alpha.si | $8,895 | Sep 29 | Sedo | A .si name, during the super intelligence wave |
“Recorded” is the date a sale entered the public record, not necessarily the date it was agreed.
Industry News
- Russia began requiring identity verification for .ru, .рф and .su on September 1. Registration, renewal and changes of registrant, registrar or delegation now go through ESIA, the state services login. Existing names can run to the end of their term without it if nothing changes.
- .name is closing its third-level service. About 22,000 third-level registrations will be deleted when the service ends, and a registrant reported receiving a shutdown notice on September 3.
- TurnCommerce added 300 registrar accreditations, taking the total under its DropCatch brand above 1,500, against 3,323 ICANN-accredited registrars.
All three were covered in our September 8 issue.
Premium Domain Changes
| Event type | August | September | Change | MoM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renewals | 29,136 | 38,148 | +9,012 | +30.9% |
| Status changes | 16,703 | 15,960 | -743 | -4.4% |
| Nameserver changes | 9,440 | 10,358 | +918 | +9.7% |
| Transfers | 3,941 | 7,819 | +3,878 | +98.4% |
| Expiries | 8,181 | 6,619 | -1,562 | -19.1% |
| Expiry date changes | 4,653 | 3,400 | -1,253 | -26.9% |
| Backorder catches | 2,595 | 2,779 | +184 | +7.1% |
| Total | 74,649 | 85,083 | +10,434 | +14.0% |
Tracked premium .com set, keyword names and two- to four-character names. August restated on the same snapshot set.
Transfers doubled and exits from Afternic’s nameservers rose from 1,333 to 2,191, but both came mostly in single-day batches: 3,879 transfers on September 11 and 999 Afternic exits on September 16. Without those two days, transfers matched August almost exactly, and Afternic exits were lower than in August.
Notable Moves
| Domain | Registered | Change |
|---|---|---|
| wall.com | 1992 | Afternic nameservers to registrar DNS |
| cd.com | 1992 | Registrar transfer, off Afternic nameservers |
| tsii.com | 1993 | Registrar DNS to Afternic nameservers |
| lost.com | 1993 | Afternic nameservers to registrar DNS |
| fff.com | 1994 | Registrar transfer, Moniker to DDD Technology |
Monthly Insight
Technology news drew registrations more than use, and two of the three keywords we followed are already fading. The pool as a whole kept growing.
DomainKits.com is ABTdomain’s domain search and analytics platform, providing registration trends, domain changes monitoring, and expired domain search.
Data Sources: Sales data compiled from Sedo, Afternic, Atom, GoDaddy Auctions, DropCatch, Dynadot, Spaceship, and public-record research (SEC filings, brokerage disclosures).
Methodology: Registration and lifecycle figures are aggregates of publicly available snapshots and represent what our systems observed at the time of collection, not official registry transaction totals. Update timing, status changes, re-registrations, coverage and filtering can cause these figures to differ from official registry reports. Follow-up figures reflect a recheck of each name on October 5, 2026.
All data is collected from publicly available sources and does not contain personal information. This report is intended solely for analyzing domain market trends and signals, and does not constitute investment advice.
Published by: ABTdomain