.era
Is .era a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.era is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Identity Digital. Neo named .era as a backup string for its .neo application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. ShortDot named .era as a backup string for its .agi application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup. Link Freedom Group named .era as a backup string for its .organization application. ICANN deactivated it, because another applicant applied for the same string or named it as a backup.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the 4 are tied to a registry that runs TLDs today. Identity Digital, Link Freedom Group and ShortDot filed 414 applications between them across the round.
Will names sell?
A nice word for naming a moment or a campaign, but few serious projects would make .era their main web address.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .era’s closest 2012 strings hold .now 27K, .today 135K and .new 2K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .now, held 27,481 names, June 2026. .today held 135,011; .new held 2,233. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a short, abstract time-word with no built-in registrant class, sold on connotation and tone to anyone wanting a punchy brand phrase rather than to a defined industry.
Also a generic temporal common noun aimed at general-purpose branding, but its everyday concreteness pulls it toward media/publishing naming while .era trades on a vaguer prestige register.
Another semantically empty English modifier whose only value is the mood it lends a left-of-dot phrase, so it depends on the same 'the whole domain is the slogan' behavior .era needs.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group face each other in 68 contests this round, .era included.
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × ShortDot
- Link Freedom Group × ShortDot
marketing teams, media outlets, fashion and lifestyle brands naming campaigns, product launches, or editorial projects around a time or movement; secondarily individuals wanting an evocative personal or fan-site name
What a .era domain is
.era is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Culture category. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .era domain extension real yet?
.era is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .era domain?
You can’t yet. A .era name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .era was .now, delegated on 7 June 2016.
Is .era a real TLD?
Not yet. .era is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .era is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- ShortDot · now deactivated backupICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now deactivated backupICANN
- Neo · first recordedICANN
- ShortDot · now abandonedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now abandonedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- ShortDot · now announced
- ShortDot · first recordedShortDot (Ireland) Limited
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
The source’s 4 linesHide the lines
A2619T-T60918 · Berth Order, LLC · primary CIL2643T-T64192 · C&G INFINITE LIMITED · replacement string of .neo · Deactivated LFGL2683T-T56765 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .organization · Deactivated NA2626T-T14670 · ShortDot (Ireland) Limited · replacement string of .agi · Deactivated
“ShortDot (Ireland) Limited has submitted 40 applications to ICANN's 2026 New gTLD Program. The 80 strings shown include applied-for and designated replacement strings across ShortDot's 40 ICANN applications, presented without revealing their status or pairing.”ShortDot (Ireland) Limited
“.era · Culture · “Mark the moment, define the era.””Link Freedom Group
- Band chosen: usable but limited (30-49). .era is a real, short dictionary word with genuine evocative pull, and it pairs naturally as a suffix for campaign-style names (a new era of X), which supports registrations at volume or on price. It is not in the band above (strong niche, 50-69) because there is no identifiable buyer category for which .era is a natural primary identity: it names a time, not an entity, so most plausible uses are secondary campaign or vanity addresses rather than the durable front door of a business, and any adoption would need explaining. It is not in the band below (vanity/joke, 10-29) because the word is broadly positive, category-agnostic, and legible to non-experts, giving it a wider and less event-dependent registration base than novelty strings. By analogy (flagged as analogy) with other evocative generic-word TLDs such as .today, .life, and .world, the likely outcome over the next 5 years is meaningful low-price registration volume, occasional creative brand usage, a thin aftermarket, and rare primary-identity use by serious projects. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists .era under category Culture with the tagline 'Mark the moment, define the era.'; a large-portfolio applicant suggests standard registrar-channel distribution rather than a bespoke community push, which fits the volume-on-price profile. Main market uncertainty: whether marketing and media buyers actually adopt time-metaphor domains for campaigns at scale, or whether that use case stays on subpaths of their main brand domains.