Domain Auction Trends
A plain-English look at what is happening in the expired domain auction market. We analyzed 3,639 curated domains from the last 30 days, and 47,010 across 275 days of archive history, to show where prices are moving, which niches and keywords are heating up, and what the typical auction domain looks like. Looking for today's list? See the Top 100.
Price Trends
30 daysHow much domains are fetching at auction and how heavily buyers are bidding.
The line shows the average current bid on each day's curated list; bars show how many bids were placed in total. Days with no import are skipped.
The typical domain on our list currently sits at $732 — up 67.6% from the prior 30 days ($437). Averages are pulled up by a handful of high-value names, so the bands below give a more honest picture.
The highest average price came on Oct 19 ($1,676), while Oct 14 saw the most bidding activity (2,121 bids).
Hot Niches & Extensions
30 daysWhich categories and domain extensions are showing up most often, and what buyers are paying for them.
Superintelligence is the largest niche right now with 623 domains , followed by Health & Beauty and Crypto & Web3 . Buyers pay the most in Numeric Domains (avg $3,343). Superintelligence is gaining the most ground, with its share of the list up 153.4% versus the previous 30 days.
Niches overlap, so one domain can count toward several. Percentages show each niche's share of all domains in the period; arrows show the change in that share versus the previous 30 days (shown only when both periods have at least 5 domains).
These collections describe what kind of domain it is rather than what it is about. Compare how much each type costs and how highly it rates.
| Type | Domains | Avg bid | Avg rating | Bids / domain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best .com |
3,105 (85.3%)
|
$726 | 62 | 13.6 |
| Bargain Picks |
2,321 (63.8%)
|
$93 | 60 | 7.6 |
| Brandable |
1,508 (41.4%)
|
$374 | 62 | 11.5 |
| High Value |
1,455 (40%)
|
$721 | 65 | 16.0 |
| Aged Domains |
1,169 (32.1%)
|
$789 | 64 | 17.2 |
| Short Domains |
547 (15%)
|
$2,001 | 63 | 17.5 |
| Single Word |
393 (10.8%)
|
$1,163 | 66 | 13.7 |
| Exact Match |
315 (8.7%)
|
$497 | 64 | 13.5 |
| Best .org / .net |
175 (4.8%)
|
$957 | 61 | 14.3 |
| Best .ai / .si |
111 (3.1%)
|
$813 | 62 | 10.7 |
.com accounts for 85.3% of auctions (average bid $726), so the interesting question is what else shows up. The table lists every other extension on its own scale. Among alternatives, .cc carries the highest average bid at $4,140.
| Extension | Domains | Avg bid | Avg rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| .ai |
111
|
$813 | 62 |
| .org |
93
|
$1,046 | 60 |
| .net |
82
|
$857 | 61 |
| .co |
79
|
$909 | 64 |
| .io |
69
|
$482 | 58 |
| .info |
23
|
$44 | 58 |
| .me |
15
|
$208 | 59 |
| .xyz |
14
|
$1,756 | 65 |
| .tv |
5
|
$91 | 62 |
| .club |
3
|
$286 | 69 |
Keyword Intelligence
Last 180 daysThe words behind the domains: what people name their businesses, and which keywords buyers are willing to pay for.
We split every domain name into its component words (bestpizzahub.com becomes best, pizza, hub) across 30,266 domains and found 5,436 distinct keywords. “tech” is the most frequent (199 domains), but “reply” is the most valuable, averaging $8,678 per auction. Buyers fight hardest over “choice” (44.5 bids per domain), and “mind” is the fastest riser lately.
Size = number of domains containing the word. Click a word to search the archive.
The words that appear in the most auctioned domains.
Words with the highest average bid (minimum 4 domains so one-off sales do not distort the list).
Words attracting the most bids per domain, a sign of real buyer competition.
Words that are more common in the last 30 days than in the earlier archive (minimum 3 recent domains).
Domain Anatomy
30 daysHow long auctioned names are, how many words they contain, and which shapes buyers reward.
| Length | Share | Avg bid | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 chars | 2.3% | $2,407 | 63 |
| 4 chars | 12.7% | $1,927 | 63 |
| 5 chars | 7.2% | $1,414 | 63 |
| 6–8 chars | 38.4% | $523 | 63 |
| 9–12 chars | 32.7% | $340 | 61 |
| 13+ chars | 6.6% | $263 | 59 |
Most auctioned names are 6–8 characters long (38.4%). Only 22.2% are five characters or shorter, which is why short names command a premium. The highest average bid is in the 1–3 character band ($2,407).
About 63.1% of names are built from real dictionary words; the other 36.9% are invented or brandable names that don't split into known words.
Hyphens and digits are rare (3.5% combined). Buyers treat them as a discount signal, so clean letter-only names dominate the curated list.
Platform Breakdown
30 daysWhere the best domains are listed, and which auction platform draws the highest prices and most competition.
| Platform | Share of list | Avg bid | Avg rating | Bids / domain | Top bid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Godaddy |
51.3%
1,867 domains
|
$549 | 62.0 | 14.1 | $47,000 |
| Dynadot |
33%
1,201 domains
|
$233 | 62.3 | 13.3 | $26,016 |
| Namecheap |
8%
291 domains
|
$1,053 | 60.4 | 17.4 | $40,499 |
| Gname |
4.5%
165 domains
|
$5,606 | 62.1 | N/A | $86,192 |
| Dropcatch |
3.2%
115 domains
|
$1,129 | 65.9 | 19.1 | $13,499 |
Platforms with fewer than 5 domains in the period are shown in the table but excluded from the highlights above. Some platforms (for example GName) report few or no bids in their feeds, so bids per domain is only a rough comparison across platforms.
Quality Metrics
30 daysHow good the average auction domain is, and how rating and age relate to price.
58.1% of domains score 60 or higher on our 0–100 rating, the range we consider investment-grade. The 122 domains rated 80+ average $5,866 per auction, versus $94 for the 40–59 band. The rating blends extension, length, word quality, age, backlinks, and bidding activity.
| Age | Domains | Avg bid |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 340 (9.3%) | $3,255 |
| < 3 yrs | 635 (17.4%) | $141 |
| 3–7 yrs | 313 (8.6%) | $290 |
| 7–15 yrs | 747 (20.5%) | $420 |
| 15+ yrs | 1,604 (44.1%) | $664 |
About the Data
How these trends are calculated and how to read them.