October 2026 Domain Lifecycle Intelligence:
- Among the four key TLDs, daily new registrations rose by 8,389 in .com, 1,116 in .app and 302 in .dev, while .net fell by 342.
- Weekly .com registrations containing superintelligence fell 89.69% from their peak week; with the initial burst over, the names registered during the wave face a long wait.
- The active domain pool across 1,107 gTLDs grew 1.24% to 260,079,390 domains, up from 0.96% in September.
- At least 8,704,645 domains entered expiry in October, an average of 280,795 per day.
- Our tracked premium .com set logged 117,370 change events, many of them on two late-October days of bulk renewals and transfers.
1. New Registrations
We recorded 10,149,206 newly registered domains across monitored gTLDs in October 2026, up from 9,230,955 in September. Daily registrations rose from 307,699 to 327,394 (+6.40%).
By volume, .com took 46.2% of October’s new registrations. .xyz recorded 1,833,986 registrations, and a large share of them came between October 15 and 22 (875,176 in total). The .xyz total was up 409,535 from September, which made up 44.6% of the month’s total increase (918,251).
| TLD | September, per day | October, per day | Change per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 142,834 | 151,223 | +8,389 |
| .net | 7,916 | 7,574 | -342 |
| .app | 4,038 | 5,154 | +1,116 |
| .dev | 1,275 | 1,576 | +302 |
Keyword Analysis in Newly Registered Domains
Prefixes Registered in the Most TLDs
The prefixes superintelligent and spacexsi, highlighted, tie to the superintelligence wave. Elon Musk said on October 4 that SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI.
Many gambling-related SLDs were also registered across different TLDs, including gembet and slotin. The prefix homzy was registered in many new gTLDs during this period.
Hot .com Keywords
The keywords my, ai, group, studio and shop remained the ones registrants used most in new .com domains.
| Word | Daily average | Total |
|---|---|---|
| my | 1,014 | 31,420 |
| ai | 1,011 | 31,339 |
| group | 940 | 29,132 |
| studio | 824 | 25,558 |
| shop | 744 | 23,052 |
Emerging .com Keywords
The words slot and judi rose with Indonesian gambling names. The rises in coverage, equity and debt came mostly from naming templates covered in our weekly issues of October 13 and October 20.
| Word | Daily average | Peak-day share |
|---|---|---|
| slot | 177 | 7.8% |
| coverage | 103 | 70.1% |
| equity | 101 | 20.1% |
| debt | 86 | 11.8% |
| judi | 55 | 14.0% |
Superintelligence, After the Peak
Our September report covered superintelligence. This is a follow-up analysis of the term. We recorded 1,819 .com registrations containing the word in October. Weekly registrations fell in each of the four weeks after the peak week.
| Week | .com names | Week over week | Change from peak week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 28 to Oct 4 | 1,542 | +48.84% | Peak week |
| Oct 5 to 11 | 742 | -51.88% | -51.88% |
| Oct 12 to 18 | 220 | -70.35% | -85.73% |
| Oct 19 to 25 | 205 | -6.82% | -86.71% |
| Oct 26 to Nov 1 | 159 | -22.44% | -89.69% |
This shows interest in the term is cooling. Whether another wave follows remains to be seen. For superintelligence and .si alike, how President Trump promotes the term, and whether he can keep promoting it, will affect both registrations and adoption.
2. Active Domain Pool
Across 1,107 tracked gTLDs, the active pool grew from 256,891,519 domains on October 1 to 260,079,390 on October 31, a net gain of +3,187,871 domains or +1.24%. Pool expansion accelerated from September’s +0.96% and edged past the +1.22% recorded in October 2025.
| TLD | Oct 1 | Oct 31 | Net change | October growth | September growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 167,063,426 | 168,454,913 | +1,391,487 | +0.83% | +0.67% |
| .net | 12,415,292 | 12,449,933 | +34,641 | +0.28% | +0.33% |
| .app | 1,689,662 | 1,803,637 | +113,975 | +6.75% | +4.92% |
| .dev | 774,539 | 810,866 | +36,327 | +4.69% | +3.44% |
Three of the four key TLDs grew faster than in September. As in new registrations, .app and .dev led; the .net pool still grew while its daily new registrations fell.
Active counts by TLD are available on DomainKits Data.
3. Expired Domains
We recorded 8,704,645 gTLD domains entering expiry in October 2026 across 571 TLDs, an average of 280,795 per day, down 3.31% from September’s 290,422 per day.
| TLD | Entered expiry | October share | September share |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | 3,814,588 | 43.82% | 42.91% |
| .xyz | 1,235,371 | 14.19% | 15.71% |
| .top | 714,752 | 8.21% | 8.90% |
| .info | 248,462 | 2.85% | 2.45% |
| .net | 215,805 | 2.48% | 2.53% |
| All other TLDs | 2,475,667 | 28.44% | 27.50% |
Expired .com Domains
Expiry Stage Distribution
Of the 3,814,588 .com domains that entered expiry in October, 1,167,499 were in the grace period, 2,214,130 in redemption and 432,959 in pending delete.
Notable names that just entered expiry include knick.com, bsu.com, worldmed.com and sellnow.com.
Character Pattern Distribution
All-letter SLDs made up 73.7% of expired .com domains. Of these, 1,096,107 (39.0%) had 10 letters or fewer. We also found 557 four-letter .com domains that entered expiry, which may be an opportunity.
Domain Age Distribution
Names registered 20+ years ago made up 1.3% of expired .com domains, or 51,482 names. Many aged domains expired: 496 were registered 30+ years ago and 50,986 were registered 20 to 29 years ago.
Of the 20+ year names, 25,515 were in the grace period, 21,986 in redemption and 3,981 in pending delete. Recently expired names are worth continued attention.
Individual names can be searched in DomainKits expired search.
4. Market and Industry News
Selected Domain Sales
Five notable sales reported in October are listed below. TradingCards.com closed at $2,000,000.
| Domain | Reported price (USD) | Reported | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| tradingcards.com | $2,000,000 | Oct 15 | Afternic |
| nor.com | $700,000 | Oct 15 | Atom |
| tick.com | $600,000 | Oct 27 | Sedo |
| act.ai | $375,000 | Oct 5 | Spaceship |
| liquid.org | $300,000 | Oct 8 | Atom |
Dates indicate when the sales entered the public record; a deal may have closed earlier. Weekly sales coverage appears in our issues of October 13, October 20, October 27 and November 3.
Industry News
- ICANN published the 2026 gTLD applications. Its October 7 release listed 1,615 applications from 481 applicants. String Confirmation Day on November 17 opens the community input and formal objection period.
- Verisign processed 13.1 million new .com and .net registrations in the third quarter, up from 10.6 million a year earlier. The company also outlined plans to open .web registration to qualifying trademark holders in mid-December, followed from mid-January 2027 by a window in which most .com registrants could register the matching .web name.
Covered in our weekly issues of October 13 and October 27.
Premium Domain Changes
We recorded 117,370 change events in October across the keyword .com names and two- to four-character .com names we track.
Much of the month’s increase came on two late-October days, though a typical day also rose: the median day went from 2,186 events in September to 2,487 in October. The rise may also be linked to the .com renewal price increase effective November 1.
| Event | October 27 | October 31 | Two days | October total | Two days’ share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renewals | 9,231 | 20,723 | 29,954 | 64,026 | 46.78% |
| Transfers | 221 | 4,279 | 4,500 | 9,700 | 46.39% |
The two days’ renewals were concentrated in four-letter .com names whose terms already ran into 2027 or later. Of the October 31 transfers, 4,011 went into a single registrar, and 1,777 of that day’s moves away from Afternic nameservers went to the same registrar’s nameservers.
Selected Registrar and Nameserver Changes
| Domain | Registered | Observed | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| asi.com | 1989 | Oct 21 | Transferred from Cloudflare to NameCheap |
| iat.com | 1990 | Oct 7 | Transferred from GoDaddy to MarkMonitor |
| er.com | 1990 | Oct 24 | Transferred from NameCheap to Spaceship and left Efty nameservers |
| spdg.com | 1992 | Oct 26 | Transferred from Dynadot to GoDaddy and switched to Afternic nameservers |
| liii.com | 1993 | Oct 21 | Switched from Afternic to Cloudflare nameservers |
Monthly Insight
October separated a news-driven registration burst from broader market growth. The superintelligence wave that surged at the end of September dropped nearly 90% from its peak week, leaving thousands of newly registered .com names to wait on longer-term catalysts. Underneath that fading wave, daily new registrations rose 6.40% and the active pool grew faster than in September; among the four key TLDs, .app and .dev led in percentage terms on both measures.
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: Figures reflect what we observed at collection time, not official registry totals.
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