If you had to sum up your entire 2025 using one domain extension, which one would you choose?

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

Imagine your whole 2025 your wins, your mistakes, the unexpected moments, the chaos, the progress and everything in between had to be represented by one single domain extension.

Which TLD would describe your year?
Did your 2025 feel like a premium domain… or a hand-reg gamble?
What TLD would you hope to use for 2026?

 

[Mr. DeletedMr. Deleted is verified member.]

MAGA or m[whatever]ga?

 

[cactusfly]

DYK, there's an extention used by many business competitors in "rage bait" marketing ------> .sucks

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

DYK, there's an extention used by many business competitors in "rage bait" marketing ------> .sucks

.. hmm.. what is your experience with this TLD? ..

just checked the namebio for this:

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

Imagine your whole 2025 your wins, your mistakes, the unexpected moments, the chaos, the progress and everything in between had to be represented by one single domain extension.

Which TLD would describe your year?
Did your 2025 feel like a premium domain… or a hand-reg gamble?
What TLD would you hope to use for 2026?

.fr was a happy and bright discovery for me - many gems available, a 67mil population, free and a bit behind with online shopping, though you can see more and more online shops advertising in various places in Paris.. I love Paris

.cn reality was a big and sad discovery for me - it seems wechat and a few similar ones have taken over China and during my short visit to China - there were almost no individual domain ads for a small/medium companies. And the same was for Hong Kong were I spent almost 3 weeks - almost no domains were advertised, much rather you would see direct telephone, whatsapp, facebook and insagram mentions.. I don't understand how small business owners trust social media companies that can delete their pages at any moment - though it isn't really my battle.. Huge companies, of course, in China and HK are a totally different story, of course - they do have money (lots of it). It seems this is a "no pigeon shit land" > only premium domain land

For small portfolios - I am a huge fan of ccTLDs (of your own country), especially seeing that online shopping is more and more important, and users quite often trust the local ccTLD as the signal that this is a local company (not some foreign scammer).

For larger portfolios (pro investors) - .com is the king (nothing else)

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

MAGA or m[whatever]ga?

Man what have you been through this year?

DYK, there's an extention used by many business competitors in "rage bait" marketing ------> .sucks

I just noticed “rage bait” ended up as Cambridge’s word of the year! (ok, i wanna drop any 67 gif here)

.. hmm.. what is your experience with this TLD? ..

just checked the namebio for this:

wow, church.sucks, wild looool

.fr was a happy and bright discovery for me - many gems available, a 67mil population, free and a bit behind with online shopping, though you can see more and more online shops advertising in various places in Paris.. I love Paris

.cn reality was a big and sad discovery for me - it seems wechat and a few similar ones have taken over China and during my short visit to China - there were almost no individual domain ads for a small/medium companies. And the same was for Hong Kong were I spent almost 3 weeks - almost no domains were advertised, much rather you would see direct telephone, whatsapp, facebook and insagram mentions.. I don't understand how small business owners trust social media companies that can delete their pages at any moment - though it isn't really my battle.. Huge companies, of course, in China and HK are a totally different story, of course - they do have money (lots of it). It seems this is a "no pigeon shit land" > only premium domain land

For small portfolios - I am a huge fan of ccTLDs (of your own country), especially seeing that online shopping is more and more important, and users quite often trust the local ccTLD as the signal that this is a local company (not some foreign scammer).

For larger portfolios (pro investors) - .com is the king (nothing else)

I personally think it’s because most users in China spend their time on platforms, not standalone websites but I’m also curious what caused that shift in the first place since back in my student days I couldn’t name a single website URL myself XD.

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

I personally think it’s because most users in China spend their time on platforms, not standalone websites but I’m also curious what caused that shift in the first place since back in my student days I couldn’t name a single website URL myself XD.

exactly! and this was a huge discovery for me.. it is interesting that the parts of the world still are so different.. here, there is "0" trust for social media .. well, people who consume news from social media (at my side of the world) are not considered to be the brighest ones .. and teens tend to verify news from at least 2 reputable sources..

.. the world is so colourful in our differences

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

exactly! and this was a huge discovery for me.. it is interesting that the parts of the world still are so different.. here, there is "0" trust for social media .. well, people who consume news from social media (at my side of the world) are not considered to be the brighest ones .. and teens tend to verify news from at least 2 reputable sources..

.. the world is so colourful in our differences

But don’t most credible news outlets run their own social accounts these days?

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

Honestly the extension that surprised us the most this year was .IO. It just kept climbing. Every time we checked the numbers there were more AI teams more indie founders and more global startups picking it up. It’s got that clean techy feel strong branding and way fewer abuse headaches than other trendy extensions.

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

But don’t most credible news outlets run their own social accounts these days?

yes, of course they do - though mostly as the means to get traffic to the full articles .. similar ar you do a great job with domain forums - branding and representation on 3rd party forums, but the full professional services = only on your website. Great job!! .. it is strange that you are the only one who does this

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

Honestly the extension that surprised us the most this year was .IO. It just kept climbing. Every time we checked the numbers there were more AI teams more indie founders and more global startups picking it up. It’s got that clean techy feel strong branding and way fewer abuse headaches than other trendy extensions.

just looked up some recent .io sales - yes, their aftermarket seems to be busy

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

yes, of course they do - though mostly as the means to get traffic to the full articles .. similar ar you do a great job with domain forums - branding and representation on 3rd party forums, but the full professional services = only on your website. Great job!! .. it is strange that you are the only one who does this

Oh totally. I only noticed the surface, but you actually called out their real motive.
And honestly, the reason Chinese users behave this way has a lot to do with WeChat cramming everything into one app, social, payments, business tools, you name it. (and yea ppl do joke it’s bloated sometime lol.)
When users spend most of their time inside one super-app, of course businesses adjust their marketing to match those habits. And it’s not that companies abandoned websites, it’s just that most of them now spread across every channel, while we as everyday users mostly bump into the non-website ones in daily life.
(I actually dug into this quite a bit before replying, so I hope it helps, bro !)

 

[Discover]

Honestly the extension that surprised us the most this year was .IO. It just kept climbing. Every time we checked the numbers there were more AI teams more indie founders and more global startups picking it up. It’s got that clean techy feel strong branding and way fewer abuse headaches than other trendy extensions.

Aren't the domains that are in high demand right now ccTLDs? It seems that apart from .com (gTLD), the short tlds, namely ccTLDs (2 letters) are gaining a place in the hearts of end-users.

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

Aren't the domains that are in high demand right now ccTLDs? It seems that apart from .com (gTLD), the short tlds, namely ccTLDs (2 letters) are gaining a place in the hearts of end-users.

100% yes, for gaining hearts. Though secondary markets (number of sales and amounts) are much much slower when compared to .com

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

Aren't the domains that are in high demand right now ccTLDs? It seems that apart from .com (gTLD), the short tlds, namely ccTLDs (2 letters) are gaining a place in the hearts of end-users.

Yeah, some ccTLD momentum also tracks registry policy shifts and how startups now frame identity.