Andrew Allemann

A couple of things stand out for 2025.  First, the death of AdSense for Domains had a huge impact on our industry. While most domain investors no longer park their domains with ads to make money, it was still a large part of the business. The end of AdSense for Domains will hurt the bottom line of many domain companies, and it is bad for everyone in the space, even if they didn't directly make money from parked domains.  

Another notable development was the return to growth in the overall domain base after a couple of years of stagnation. This is particularly evident in .com, which had been shedding domains but grew nicely in 2025.

The next round of new top level domain name expansion will kick off in 2026. This will draw a lot of attention to the domain space. It will be interesting to see which new companies will participate this time. There are a couple of companies that didn't apply for names in 2012 that plan to apply for 100+ domains, in addition to established top level domain companies that will certainly double down.  

Braden Pollock

It goes without saying that AI was among the biggest trends that affected the domain business. There's the use of AI for domain search and discovery as GoDaddy, Atom and others have rolled out. AI is also being used for appraisals e.g. Appraise.net and DomainValue.com - and certainly others. But most importantly, AI is driving domain sales. The fact is that half of all VC funding in the US in 2025 was for AI companies. There are so many new AI companies that need domains that we're seeing, not just .AI sales but .com and other TLD sales as well. Like with any other emerging trend, the domain sales include generics, brandables, keyword+AI, and even new AI related terms. Just as AI has propped up the "financial" economy, AI has propped up domain sales. I expect that to, thankfully, continue in 2026.

In addition to AI-related domain sales, I expect premium domains to continue selling for higher prices. As I connect with buyers, it's evident that more and more business owners understand that premium names come at a premium price. The

learning curve for the general public seems to be shortening, which makes our jobs easier. Although we still have a long way to go.

I expect to see some consolidation of portfolios this year as investors start to join forces. I also see real domain fractionalization on the horizon which will make way for institution liquidity in a way this industry has never seen. Exciting times! 

The most significant shift in 2025 was the transformation of domains from static assets into what we call DNA—Digital Native Assets—programmable properties capable of operating as autonomous businesses from day one.

This isn't theoretical for eCorp. We launched ContentAgent.com in late 2025 as part of our AgentDAO and VentureOS platform. Within weeks of deployment, it was live with five autonomous features—AI topic discovery, plagiarism detection, brand voice synchronization, a content library, and automated blog deployment—all running without a single employee. The domain now has over 1,200 users subscribing via ESH tokens on Base, generating revenue through a bonding curve model that rewards early adopters while creating an onchain verifiable and professional reputation. No pitch deck. No fundraising round. Just a good brand URL creating and distributing value.

This compressed timeline—from dormant domain to functioning digital business in weeks—represents the real trend of 2025. AI matured from a 

Chad Folkening

bolted-on feature into underlying infrastructure. The result is that proof-of-value now matters more than traffic metrics. Domains that can demonstrate engagement, conversion signals, and revenue indicators are separating themselves from purely speculative inventory.

The broader industry is catching up to what we envisioned when we started eCorp in 1996: domains as operating entities, not placeholders. The technology finally arrived in 2025.

In 2026, buyers and partners will ask a different question: not "what is this domain worth?" but "what does it already do?" Workflows, data, automation, revenue—these become the new valuation inputs alongside keyword quality and comparable sales.

The most important implication is the rise of the zero-employee enterprise (eCorp). ContentAgent.com proved a premium domain with intelligent automation can test, operate, and monetize at scale previously requiring teams. This fundamentally changes entrepreneurship economics. Platforms like VentureOS are designed to replicate this model across portfolios—coordinating AI agents, execution, and distribution around the domain itself.

Chad Folkening is frequently asked to speak at industry events, 
This shot is from the 2023 NamesCon Global conference in Austin, Texas.

Network effects will define winners in 2026. Domains embedded with agents earning referral revenue, forging partnerships, and integrating into vertical ecosystems will outperform isolated assets and portfolios. Assets creating value 24/7 is the opportunity and building them is the challenge. Operators who think and act in systems rather than single-site optimization or single sale models will have the advantage in 2026.

The challenge will be signal versus noise. As AI lowers launch barriers, the industry will see an influx of shallow projects. The advantage goes to disciplined execution and durable systems over one-off experiments. For our industry, this is healthy—it rewards builders and further solidifies domains as foundational assets in the digital economy.

2026 is the year technologies converge on top of URLs to create something special. The operators who embrace that shift will define what domains become and see the full potential. To a Happy and Healthy 2026!

We did extremely well monetizing our Geodomains like Nashville.com, PalmSprings.com and WestPalmBeach.com, but after doing it 24/7 for over ten years, I was burned out and jumped at the chance to drum and tour internationally with BREE (www.BreeMusic.com). Besides having the time of my life, it also allowed me the opportunity to see the domain name industry from the outside looking in. People in the entertainment industry were curious as to what I did besides music. When I mentioned “Domain names,” they replied, “Oh, you mean like GoDaddy?” This wasn’t their reply most of the time. It was their reply every time.

I was impressed. GoDaddy had created a brand so powerful that, in the Public’s eye, it had become synonymous with domain names. When I returned to the domain world, we had an inquiry for Islanders.com. I chatted with the buyer who was launching a clothing line named Islanders and 

David Castello

intuitively knew he needed the domain name, We agreed on a six-figure price. This was a huge expenditure for him, but he wanted the name. The next day, he called and said the deal was off. He was angry. I was stunned. He told me that GoDaddy had appraised Islanders.com for only 20K (check it yourself). Suddenly, the buyer saw me not as an online brand specialist, but as a con man.
This hit me hard. My brother, Michael, and I have fought to protect our reputation. I checked GoDaddy’s GoValue and was shocked to see that our six and seven-figure names were appraised for less than 25K.

In fact, GoDaddy’s present system doesn’t allow for a numerical appraisal above 25K for any name.
Knowing firsthand how powerful GoDaddy’s brand is with the Public, it wasn’t hard to extrapolate that they’ve been severely suppressing domain name value in the Public’s mind for years. There seemed to be no solution until October 2025 when GoDaddy launched their Ultra-Premium site, DomainNames.com. To be listed, a name has to be valued at a minimum of 100K. We submitted a handful of names. All were accepted, even though GoDaddy appraised each for less than 25K. Why did we do this? Two reasons. Both systems, GoValue and DomainNames.com, cannot continue to co-exist. In addition, we wanted to have our hand in the pot. It’s a lot easier to advocate for change when you have a vested interest.

So, in November 2025 I attended NamesCon in Miami and spoke with GoDaddy’s staff. Soon after, GoDaddy informed me they will be revamping their appraisal system. For the first time, they will be telling the Public that names are worth six and seven-figures. Will this raise eyebrows throughout the business world and attract a new generation of educated buyers? You bet!

Left to right at the 2025 NamesCon Global conference in Miami: 
Shane Cultra, Andrew Rosener, David Castello, Kevin McKim and Steven Kaziyev.

Most Domainers have no idea how much this will change the aftermarket as we know it. The seismic shift will be massive across the board. Domain names are one of the best investments, but the Public is confused about domain value above 25K. When they hear about a major sale, they think it’s a fluke. Those days will cease to exist and the domain name industry will cease to operate inside a bubble.

2025 has been a remarkably interesting year, with some domain investors making exceptionally large gains with their AI holdings, while some did not see the wave coming and missed the boat completely.  We have seen plenty of 6-figure sales and even a few 7-figure sales, and the sales of AI names are only getting stronger as time goes by.  

Domainers who started in the last few years are making some phenomenal sales and getting the capital to invest more with some of the non-com extensions like .ai, .io, .co, .gg, .app, etc.

2025 was also significant for marketplaces with Spaceship and Atom gaining more market share and many more in the drawing board stage.

Going forward into 2026, I perceive that the market is going to see some extraordinarily strong seven and eight-figure .com sales on a regular basis, and the occasional mega outliers. 2026 means more marketplaces, more options. Greater choice for large domain portfolio holders in where to list their names, how to list their names, what commissions to pay, and the payment options, with plenty of options to choose from.   

Deepak Daftari

Acquiring meaningful names in .com is going to be an extremely expensive affair from here on. And in some cases, prices are already touching the lower end of retail pricing. I do not see the prices going down anytime soon. Prices are only going to go up from here in the aftermarket.  I also assume there would be some exceptionally large AI sales in 2026, and it would be a high capital-intensive exercise to build an AI portfolio now.

The most important advancement of 2025 for the domain industry was the internet community’s renewed push toward trusted sources in the data chain. Domain names—specifically legacy extensions like .com, .net, .org, .edu, .mil, and country-code TLDs—have always carried inherent trust. They are the backbone of the DNS system, enabling the propagation of every other extension and protocol that followed.

Most notably, Apple’s iPhone and Safari browser now keep the domain name visible in the URL on every page viewed. With this latest update, net travelers can clearly see they are within the brand they intended to visit, rather than being silently hijacked to a nefarious destination.

In a virtual world where netizens were slowly learning to use the web to become more independent and prosperous, the 2020 pandemic forced the broader public online almost overnight. Many defaulted to the walled gardens of social media to communicate, concentrating massive traffic flows into the hands of just a few monopolies — monopolies that increased their wealth tenfold in the process.

Michael Castello

Looking ahead to 2026, I see a shift as people begin to find their footing between the internet and real social life. With far more users now fluent online, I believe they will seek out specific verticals of genuine interest. The melting pot of data from the last five years has created chaos, and chaos eventually seeks harmony. I’ve always promoted domain name development, and this is the moment to build your niche. Own your platform, then promote it through the social media channels that currently control traffic.

Below is a screenshot of one of my websites as I write this. There was a time when this site received traffic from most Western countries, especially Canada. As the image shows, that traffic is now gated almost entirely within the U.S. Despite having a global brand, the monopolies we compete against expect us to pay not only for local reach, but for worldwide visibility as well. This is what unfair business practices look like, and until there is meaningful congressional push-back, this is the reality most startups face.

AI is also staring us down. We, the content creators, built Google—and AI systems are now being trained on that same content. There must be a compensation framework that requires these trillion-dollar companies to pay developers and publishers for the data and work they create. Without it, that imbalance only grows.

I believe we are approaching a positive correction toward website and domain name independence. As the internet matures, trusted domains and individually developed websites will lead the next phase of growth, reconnecting the dots and reshaping how we experience the web.