.bbq

Is .bbq a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?

Commerce
applicants
  • Phoenix Domain PartnersAnnounced
on the record since Aug 17, 2026 · updated Aug 17, 2026
AI score
28/ 100
Vanity and narrow

Fun and memorable for barbecue joints, sauces, and grill brands, but few will make it their primary web address over the next 5 years.

assessed by claude-fable-5 · Aug 17, 2026
AI score 28 of 100. .com scores 96, .ai scores 84.
who it’s for

barbecue restaurants, pitmasters, sauce and grill-gear brands, competition BBQ teams, and food-culture hobby projects wanting a playful, semantic name

CommerceCultureBrand
applicants
1 on file
Phoenix Domain PartnersAnnounced
Aug 17, 2026

One of 13 strings Phoenix Domain Partners published as applied-and-paid in the ICANN 2026 round, reported by Domain Name Wire on 2026-08-17.

closest 2012 bets
3 of 1,408

The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.

.pizzastrong parallel
delegated 2014 · live

Same bet: a single colloquial food noun narrow enough that a restaurant, pitmaster, or sauce brand will hang its whole identity on it, betting that a hyper-specific vertical beats a generic like .restaurant.

4 applicants contested it · scored 48* in 2012 · run by Foggy Moon, LLC

.beerstrong parallel
delegated 2014 · live

Same bet on a consumable that is simultaneously a commercial category and a hobbyist subculture, so the registry needs both producers/retailers and enthusiast-hobbyists to adopt it for the volume to work.

uncontested · scored 45* in 2012 · run by Top Level Domain Holdings Limited

.cookingmoderate
delegated 2014 · live

Same bet on a food-adjacent activity noun whose primary registrants are content and enthusiast sites rather than corporations, but it is a broad activity where .bbq is a narrow named cuisine, so the addressable pool is much wider.

uncontested · scored 40* in 2012 · run by Top Level Domain Holdings Limited

* A separate 2012-only read, time-locked to what was public that year. Different scale from this page’s score — the two are not comparable.

history
  1. Phoenix Domain Partners · first recordedAug 17, 2026
    Domain Name Wire
news & sources
NewsTLD application disclosures: Suffix, Phoenix Domain Partners
Aug 17, 2026
Phoenix Domain Partners published 13 strings for which it says it has applied and paid the application fees.
Domain Name Wire
Considering a name on .bbq?Appraise a name on this TLD →

This record is corrected in the open. See the changelog and methodology.