Recently published information shows that .com domains stay dominant, but stronger capacity among replacement extensions suggests businesses person amended options. The results show which domain extensions are gaining crushed and whitethorn bespeak that .com’s power is starting to wane.
Dot Com Remains Important But Is Weakening
The study was generated by Wix, which is besides a domain sanction registrar and the information covers domain names from 2025 done 2026.
Perhaps not surprising, Wix’s study shows that 82% of Wix sites successful the United States usage .com for their websites. Wix says group are 13 times much apt to usage a .com domain sanction than immoderate different extension.
Dot com has ever been considered the astir trustworthy domain sanction hold and it’s surely what galore consumers expect erstwhile they spell shopping. But Wix’s study shows that consumers expectations whitethorn beryllium changing.
Wix’s information shows that dot com domain names predominate successful 10 countries:
- Brazil
- India
- Japan
- Kenya
- Mexico
- South Africa
- Spain
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- United States of America
Wix besides recovered that section extensions hit .com domain registrations successful Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The information besides shows that successful Australia (.com.au), Canada (.ca), France (.fr), and Great Britain (.co.uk) location is simply a much moreover divided betwixt section domain sanction extensions and .com.
Geographically circumstantial domain names person agelong been trusted by users successful individual countries, this is simply a longstanding understanding. But Wix’s information shows that this whitethorn beryllium changing arsenic much and much businesses are adopting dot com domains alternatively of their section domain extensions.
Dot Org Revenue And Traffic Performance
The astir astonishing accusation Wix surfaced is that dot org websites are 34% much apt to make ecommerce gross than dot com sites. Wix besides recovered that .org sites person 3% much tract sessions than .com sites.
In my experience, having successfully utilized .org websites for publishing content, tract visitors thin to spot the .org domain. It’s surely my acquisition that it’s easier to get links to them arsenic well.
Rise Of Dot Store Domains
Another absorbing information constituent is that ecommerce sites utilizing .store domains gain 10% much gross than .com sites. Wix besides recovered that .store websites gain 2 times much gross than .shop aliases .net sites.
Ecommerce sites look to beryllium rushing to bargain these replacement domain extensions. Registrations of .store, .online, and .shop domains doubled wrong the first 5 months of 2026, from January to May 2026.
Dot AI And IO
Perhaps a reflection of the emergence of AI-powered solopreneurs successful the package and exertion space, Wix noticed that .ai domain registrations accrued 20% from January to May 2026, becoming the 10th astir celebrated domain hold successful Wix’s data. Registration of .io domains accrued a whopping 32x successful May 2026.
In computing, IO is shorthand for input/output, reflecting really computers person information and output it. That basal computing paradigm is why .io has go a highly celebrated domain hold for tech companies to register. Given really celebrated .io has become, it whitethorn beryllium gaining relation pinch exertion companies and little truthful pinch the original input/output connection association.
Defensive Domain Name Registration
Many businesses are happy pinch the domains that they have. But thing that should beryllium considered is purchasing domain names for protect reasons. Is it capable to ain the dot com aliases dot AI version of your domain? One constituent of position that I work together pinch is that it whitethorn beryllium useful to acquisition non-brand domain names that a early competitor whitethorn want to register. For example, a marque whitethorn person their marque sanction domains locked down but what astir non-brand domains that are focused connected important keywords, are you comfortable if a competitor picks those up?
The results of Wix’s domain sanction investigation provides useful insights to see of what kinds of apical level domains are trending and really good they execute successful the existent world.
Takeaways
- .Com remains dominant, but its position is not absolute. It is still overwhelmingly celebrated successful the U.S. and leads successful galore countries, though section extensions stay stronger successful immoderate markets.
- Alternative domain extensions are showing stronger capacity successful immoderate cases. .org sites are much apt to make ecommerce gross than .com sites, while .store sites besides outperform .com, .shop, and .net connected revenue.
- Businesses are adopting specialized domain extensions much quickly. Registrations of .store, .online, and .shop doubled successful the first 5 months of 2026, suggesting increasing acceptance of alternatives to .com.
- Technology-focused extensions are increasing rapidly. .ai registrations accrued 20%, while .io registrations surged 32x successful May, reflecting beardown request astir AI, software, and exertion businesses.
- Domain strategy whitethorn beryllium becoming much important beyond simply securing a brand’s .com. Defensive domain sanction registration tin widen beyond protecting a marque sanction and widen toward securing non-brand domains successful progressively important domain extensions that others are uncovering occurrence with, arsenic good arsenic those based connected important keywords.
Dot com domain names stay dominant, but the information shows that replacement domain extensions are not only getting registered astatine a faster pace, they are really outperforming the accepted dot com domain names. That doesn’t mean that replacement domain sanction extensions are inherently amended but it does awesome that consumers are comfortable visiting and paying for services and products connected domain names different than connected the accepted dot com website.
Wix recovered that successful immoderate cases replacement domain extensions were outperforming .com connected some gross and traffic. The maturation of .store, .ai, and .io besides shows that businesses are becoming much consenting to usage domain extensions that awesome what benignant of institution aliases website they are and that consumers are comfortable pinch those domain names. The large takeaway present is that consumers and businesses are good into a caller property of domain sanction choices.
Read the afloat study astatine Wix, which is simply a domain sanction registrar.
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