NameSilo

analysis 2024 Domain Name Market Dollar Volume Trends

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Each year I look at trends in dollar volume for sales reported in NameBio. This report is based on about 144,700 domain name sales recorded for 2024 at NameBio, with a total dollar volume of just over $185 million USD.

The domain name market, at least as reflected in the NameBio data, was up 32.8% in dollar volume when 2024 is compared to 2023. The actual number of sales was down marginally, but the average value per sale was up markedly.

The data reported was captured in early January 2025. While some sales for the year get reported late to NameBio, by using a consistent procedure from year to year, the trends should not be biased by this factor.

NameBio includes many more wholesale transactions than retail, but the total dollar volume is generally dominated by retail sales.

Many sales are not reported in NameBio. They may be from venues with no reported data, unreported private sales, or sales subject to nondisclosure agreements. Also, there are changes over time regarding which sales are in NameBio, so one should be cautious with interpretation of annual trends. With those points in mind, let’s dive into the 2024 data.

The Domain Name Sales Dollar Volume Pie

There was very little change from 2023 in terms of what percentage of the total market is .com. 74.4% of the total dollar volume in 2024 came from sales of .com domain names. The graph below shows how the entire pie is divided.
Image-Pie-2024.jpg


Country code extensions increased their dollar volume share again this year, now representing 13.4% of the entire sales volume.

‘Other’ in the chart consists of legacy TLDs such as .info, .pro, .mobi, and .biz, as well as third-level TLDs such as .it.com.

.COM

While there has been some variability, the total dollar volume in .com sales is pretty consistent over many years. The $137.9 million in dollar volume in 2024 was up substantially, 32.5%, when compared to 2023, although the number of .com sales dipped by a few percent.
Image-COM-2024.jpg


.ORG Modest Growth

The .org extension has had a steady increase for many years. While .org sales dollar volume was up 4.9% year-over-year, that is a smaller increase than in recent years.
Image-ORG-2024.jpg

The .org sales volume, $11.3 million in 2024, keeps growing compared to .net, that was just under $3.9 million in 2024.

.NET Up

That said, .net had a relatively strong 2024, up 34.3% in dollar volume year-over-year. Both the number of sales in the extension, and the average price, were up.

Country Code Extensions Up

Country code extensions taken as a whole were up 23.5% in last year’s report. That grew in 2024 by a further 44.4% increase year-over-year. We show the multi-year pattern below.
Image-AllCC-2024.jpg


New Domain Extensions

Taken as a whole, aftermarket sales volume of new domain extensions was up 54.6%, to just over $7.1 million. I show the trend over the past six years below. The number of new extension sales saw a slight decline of 5.9%, however, so the average price per sale was strongly up.
Image-AllNew-2024.jpg

.AI Surge Grows

Much of the country code increase was driven by .ai sales, and, as the graph below indicates, there is no sign of that weakening yet. When 2024 is compared to 2023, .ai sales dollar volume more than doubled, up 107%. The number of sales in .ai increased less strongly, although still up 33.9% year-over-year, with increasing prices driving much of the dollar volume increase.

Image-AI-2024.jpg

.IO Also Had Strong Year

While the.ai extension had a stellar year, 2024 was also a good year for the .io extension. When we compare 2024 to 2023, .io sales dollar volume was up 26.5%. The number of .io sales was actually down, but strong prices more than compensated.

Image-IO-2024.jpg

Good Year for .XYZ

The .xyz extension accounted for almost $2.3 million in sales dollar volume during 2024, that is up about 65.4% compared to 2023.
Image-XYZ-2024.jpg

The .xyz extension represents 31.8% of the entire new gTLD total volume.

The $500,000 Plus Club

In addition to .com, .org, .net, .ai, .io and .xyz, there were a number of other extensions with at least $500,000 in total NameBio-reported sales volume during 2024. I show them in the graph below.
Image-500k-Club-2024.jpg

Probably the biggest surprise was .bet, that was up substantially in 2024, almost 20x the dollar volume of the previous year. While much of that was due to two high-value sales included in the top 100 sales of 2024, there were many other significant sales in the extension.

I checked many TLDs for this analysis, including dozens not reflected in this report due to low volumes, but the process was manual. It is possible I missed a few extensions that should have been in this group.

$100,000 to $499,000 Dollar Volume Extensions

I show below extensions, at least from those that I checked, with more than $100,000 but less than $500,000 in dollar volume during 2024.
Image-100k-Club-2024.jpg

There was a substantial rise in .vc, up 127% in dollar volume year-over-year.

India’s .in extension had a strong 2024, with a 144% increase in dollar volume, with almost $335,000 in sales dollar volume during 2024.

The .id extension saw dollar volume up more than 6x from 2023, now at just over $182,000.

While .tv was still a top performer, it was down 11.5% year-over-year.

The .vip extension sales volume was down about 36% from a strong 2023, but that still reflected more than $226,000 in dollar volume in 2024.

The .network extension had a strong 2024, up 242% year-over-year. While it has had a number of years of solid 5-figure annual dollar volumes, this was the first time to move into 6-figure annual sales volume total.

There was a substantial rise for .link in 2024, up about 4x in dollar volume year-over-year.

The .art extension was up a healthy 10.6%, with an annual reported dollar volume of just over $248,000.

The .world extension was up 274% from the 2023 dollar volume, with just over $109,000 in dollar volume.

Other Notes

Here are a few other noteworthy changes for extensions that did not meet the $100,000 level:
  • .pro just missed the list, at a dollar volume of $99,000, but that was up almost 50% from the previous year.
  • The .one extension also saw a big rise, up 158%, to a 2024 dollar volume of just over $55,000.
  • The .health extension went from a tiny 2023 sales volume to just over $50,000 in 2024.
  • While still only accounting for about $30,000 in volume, 2024 was way up for the .fun extension that finally had some significant sales.
  • Some of the highly registered, see nTLD Stats for numbers, but deeply discounted in first year, extensions had very poor aftermarket sales records. The .top extension (#4 in registrations) had just $8000 in 2024 sales volume, while the dollar volume for .site (#5) was only $6300. The .store extension (#6 in registrations) had just under $4000 in total sales volume, and .bond (#8 in registrations) only $2300 total, and .sbs (#9 in registration numbers) saw less than $1000 in reported annual aftermarket sales volume.
In case you were wondering, the .horse extension had its best year ever, with a mid 4-figure sale. In fact, that one sale was not far off the total 2024 sales volume in .mobi, that fell 43% to a total of about $8000.

Without looking it up, do you know the extension that had an average sales price of $50,000 in 2024? If you think you know the answer, post in the comment section below.

Wondering what was published in one of the other reports in this series, or in another NamePros published analysis article? I put the links all together in one place: NamePros Blog Analysis Articles.

What trends seem noteworthy to you?

Is there an extension not mentioned that you are keeping an eye on? If you would like numbers for a particular extension, just ask in the comment section below.


My sincere thanks for NameBio. The superb interface makes it easy to do an analysis such as this one using their data. I just analyze and present the data – NameBio do the heavy lifting. Also, thanks to all of the investors who report their sales to NameBio, and help inform our domain investing.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Nice write up! I noticed .to has had an incredible (almost unbelievable) # of reported sales on NameBio. 3,343 sales?! Seems impossible vs the # of .to regs. Any idea what is going on there?

Screenshot 2025-01-10 at 11.51.44 AM.png
 
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Nice write up! I noticed .to has had an incredible (almost unbelievable) # of reported sales on NameBio. 3,343 sales?! Seems impossible vs the # of .to regs. Any idea what is going on there?

Yup they always get snapped up on park.

A lot of indie dev type people building on these.
 
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Yup they always get snapped up on park.

A lot of indie dev type people building on these.

If true, this represents a 12.5% STR. You're saying it is true... is this the best kept secret to domaining? Or is "park" just a wholesale thingy where all these sales are ~$100-$200?
 
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If true, this represents a 12.5% STR. You're saying it is true... is this the best kept secret to domaining? Or is "park" just a wholesale thingy where all these sales are ~$100-$200?

Yeah just look at namebio.

They're mostly $100-300 wholesale acquisitions.

Park is dropcatch for these type of extensions.
 
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I noticed .to has had an incredible (almost unbelievable) # of reported sales on NameBio. 3,343 sales?! Seems impossible vs the # of .to regs. Any idea what is going on there?
If true, this represents a 12.5% STR. You're saying it is true... is this the best kept secret to domaining? Or is "park" just a wholesale thingy where all these sales are ~$100-$200?
Your number of sales is for all time. Normally one computes an annual STR using sales from one year. For example when one talks of a typical 1% STR that is an annual STR.

If one takes the 239 sales of .to recorded at NameBio for 2024, and use 58,700 as number of registrations, it would suggest an apparent annual STR of 0.41%.

Now I use the word apparent, as undoubtedly many sales of .to not recorded in NameBio so some factor would need to be applied for the unreported sales to estimate a true STR.

It may well turn out that the true STR is substantially above the industry average, as it is for .io and .ai. But all of these TLDs are expensive to hold, and the higher STR (and/or prices) need to make up for that.

With respect to Park.io, while buyers undoubtedly a mix, yes I think majority of sales in .to on the platform are being picked up by domain investors, as the prices of the majority of the listed .to sales would suggest.

-Bob
 
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Your number of sales is for all time. Normally one computes an annual STR using sales from one year. For example when one talks of a typical 1% STR that is an annual STR.

If one takes the 239 sales of .to recorded at NameBio for 2024, and use 58,700 as number of registrations, it would suggest an apparent annual STR of 0.41%.

Now I use the word apparent, as undoubtedly many sales of .to not recorded in NameBio so some factor would need to be applied for the unreported sales to estimate a true STR.

It may well turn out that the true STR is substantially above the industry average, as it is for .io and .ai. But all of these TLDs are expensive to hold, and the higher STR (and/or prices) need to make up for that.

With respect to Park.io, while buyers undoubtedly a mix, yes I think majority of sales in .to on the platform are being picked up by domain investors, as the prices of the majority of the listed .to sales would suggest.

-Bob

I realize how STR is calculated... I, for ease and convenience, use an all time STR (this way I can just readily get a sense vs .com and use total regs vs total sales to see a general picture (of course annual is much better as it shows trends).

Anyway, were did you get 58,700? Domain tools shows 1/2 that.

to regs.png
 
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Anyway, were did you get 58,700? Domain tools shows 1/2 that.
I used Domain Name Stat. I have noticed that, particularly for some country code TLDs, the various sites that congregate stats sometimes have rather different results. If I write an article on an extension I try to get registration data from the registry, which is supposedly the most up to date, but for .to that is not readily available as far as I can see.
TO-reg-stats.jpg

Of course for any STR we should be using names listed for sale, not registration statistics, but now with Dofo no longer providing the information I do not know of a source for that.

Thanks for clarifying that your post referred to lifetime rather than annual STR.

-Bob
 
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I thought the xyz extension might hold around 2%-3%.
 
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I used Domain Name Stat. I have noticed that, particularly for some country code TLDs, the various sites that congregate stats sometimes have rather different results. If I write an article on an extension I try to get registration data from the registry, which is supposedly the most up to date, but for .to that is not readily available as far as I can see.
Show attachment 268807
Of course for any STR we should be using names listed for sale, not registration statistics, in any case, but now with Dofo no longer providing the information I do not know of a source for that.

Thanks for clarifying that your post referred to lifetime rather than annual STR.

-Bob

Disconcerting to see a 2x difference in registrations for .to over the 2 TLD stat websites. Hard to trust them when there is that great of a difference. I haven't see such a disparity for other TLDs (although I didn't look that hard). I may.
 
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Disconcerting to see a 2x difference in registrations for .to over the 2 TLD stat websites. Hard to trust them when there is that great of a difference. I haven't see such a disparity for other TLDs (although I didn't look that hard). I may.
I think you will find generally the ICANN regulated new extensions have pretty consistent numbers, and also some countries, but others will be wildly different. It is because if the country does not provide a zone file, then it is hard to really know. DomainTools on their TLDs page say that:
For registry's that don't provide a zone file or publish an up-to-date record, Our Count represents all domains we know about, which is usually more accurate.
Right now there is an even bigger differential between the two sites for .ws, for example. I am sure it would be easy to find other countries with major discrepancies between them.

-Bob
 
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I think you will find generally the ICANN regulated new extensions have pretty consistent numbers, and also some countries, but others will be wildly different. It is because if the country does not provide a zone file, then it is hard to really know. DomainTools on their TLDs page say that:

Right now there is an even bigger differential between the two sites for .ws, for example. I am sure it would be easy to find other countries with major discrepancies between them.

-Bob
We don't have to look very far. .com has a 136,000,000 registration difference! That should tell us who is correct. How can the 2 sites have such a difference? Is there any way to know which is correct - and which website should be ignored for all eternity? (note domaintools has the lower amount).

Screenshot 2025-01-11 at 5.28.30 AM.png
Screenshot 2025-01-11 at 5.28.36 AM.png
 
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This site is accurate, providing you with an additional point of comparison.
Thanks so much. However, for case of .to there appears no information on that site.
 
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Thanks so much. However, for case of .to there appears no information on that site.

Agreed. So it doesn't help us with .to

However, if we are to believe that this site is correct then we can use it as a proxy to identify whether DomainTools or Domain Name Stat is the better tool (with more correct info). It shows 153,800,000 com's taken. Which more closely aligns with Domain Tools rather than DomainNameStat. Which makes me believe that Domain Name Stats data should not be as trustworthy as DomainTools. Again, this of course only assumes DNS coffee's data is factually correct.
 
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I thought the xyz extension might hold around 2%-3%.
Pretty close. I did not include the number in the article, but 1.22% of the total dollar volume for 2024 (at least that reported on NameBio) was in .xyz.
 
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Without looking it up, do you know the extension that had an average sales price of $50,000 in 2024? If you think you know the answer, post in the comment section below.
No one wants to hazard a guess on this? Surely someone can hack a solution? :unsure:

Is there an extension not mentioned that you are keeping an eye on? If you would like numbers for a particular extension, just ask in the comment section below.
Just post in comments if there is a particular TLD not covered in the report that you would like numbers for.

Someone asked outside NamePros about .so. The dollar volume was up, 28.2% year-over-year, but the dollar volume of just over $21,000 in 2024 did not make the charts.

With all TLDs keep in mind that the majority of retail sales are not in NameBio, so an extension may have a much larger actual dollar volume than reported here.

Bob
 
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Does anyone have an explanation of why .id had such a strong year?

It went from 19 reported sales in 2023 to 278 in 2024. The dollar volume went from just under $28,000 in 2023 to almost $183,000 in 2024.

-Bob
 
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Does anyone have an explanation of why .id had such a strong year?

It went from 19 reported sales in 2023 to 278 in 2024. The dollar volume went from just under $28,000 in 2023 to almost $183,000 in 2024.

-Bob

my speculation:

background:
https://www.voanews.com/a/chips-down-indonesia-battles-illegal-online-gambling-/7761827.html
https://www.gambling.com/country-overviews/indonesia

-> Indonesian gambling (and affiliate) sites need to operate a bit under the radar
-> they repurpose innocent looking, geo (provincial) .id (or .org) domains that preferably come with some SEO juice
-> aftermarket interest and drop catch competition
 
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Without looking it up, do you know the extension that had an average sales price of $50,000 in 2024? If you think you know the answer, post in the comment section below.
No one wants to hazard a guess on this? Surely someone can hack a solution? :unsure:

Must be some exotic tld. Did people.love sell last or this year? Anyway, without looking that up, my guess is .love.
 
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I've sold 3 .to domains over the years. UFO, Fry and I think Zoo? For 350, 899 and 899 respectively.

I think these were all before the guy who owned register.to died and the TO peeps had to step in to help us transfer domains away.

I think .to domains have been used as url shorteners for a long time and I'd guess that's the majority of their appeal.
 
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The Indonesian domains are interesting. I forget the thread but there is one from earlier this year on Namepros where we were discussing the various gambling domain sales that were old pharmacy websites.

Kind of reminded me of how Walgreens used to sell whiskey by prescription in the U.S. during the Prohibition (the museum in Savannah is worth a visit if you're in town).
 
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Must be some exotic tld. Did people.love sell last or this year? Anyway, without looking that up, my guess is .love.
It is not .love, but you reminded me I should have included .love in the figure. Will have to update.

Here is another hint, it is a country code extension, and the one name that sold was a very short domain hack.

-Bob
 
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Here is another hint, it is a country code extension, and the one name that sold was a very short domain hack.

Enables very short hacks & only one name sold, .et?
 
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