.not
Is .not a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.not is not contested. One application for it is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. It is Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Link Freedom Group filed 158 applications across the round.
Will names sell?
A joke-flavored negation ending good for punchlines and stunts, but it undercuts any name put in front of it, so serious use stays rare.
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. .not’s closest 2012 strings hold .how 4K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .how, held 3,596 names, June 2026. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
- .and
Same bet exactly: an English function word with no category, industry, or audience of its own, whose entire value proposition is that it completes a phrase across the dot rather than classifying the registrant.
- .are
Another bare grammatical fragment that means nothing standing alone and only monetizes as sentence-completion wordplay (we.are, you.are), betting that registrants will pay for a memorable phrase rather than a topical shelf they belong on.
Also a short non-noun sold on left-of-dot phrase construction, but weaker as a parallel because 'how' carries a real standalone commercial meaning (how-to, know-how) that gives it a content category .not can never have.
meme-makers, satirists, parody sites, and campaign or stunt marketers who want a name that reads as a punchline; occasionally defensive registrants protecting a brand from mockery.
What a .not domain is
.not 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 .not domain extension real yet?
.not 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 .not domain?
You can’t yet. A .not name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens.
Is .not a real TLD?
Not yet. .not is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .not is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T38665 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary”ICANN
“.not · Culture · “Flip the script, change the story.””Link Freedom Group
- Band 10-29 (vanity/joke/narrow). The string's core problem is semantic: '.not' negates whatever precedes it, so 'acme.not' reads as an anti-Acme site, which makes it structurally hostile to primary-identity use while being attractive for parody, satire, and phrase hacks ('why.not', 'believe.it.or.not' style constructions). By analogy, humor and snark TLDs such as .lol and .wtf have sustained real but shallow registration demand driven by novelty and promotional pricing, and negation-adjacent strings like .fail and .sucks drew registrations that skewed toward jokes and defensive blocks rather than serious projects; I infer .not lands in that same pattern, likely toward the weaker end because the negation applies to the registrant's own name. It is not in the 30-49 band because even volume-on-price demand looks thin: the brand signal is actively negative for a business, and defensive demand for a joke string is typically modest by analogy with prior mockery-oriented TLDs. It is not in the 1-9 band because a realistic market does exist: phrase hacks and satire names have repeatedly found buyers on comparable culture TLDs, and a handful of two-word hacks on .not could carry genuine aftermarket interest. Registration volumes, pricing, and comparable-TLD counts are unknown; all outcome claims here are analogy, not data. My main market uncertainty is whether internet meme culture adopts the negation format as a recognizable in-joke (the way sarcastic 'not!' phrasing once functioned), which would concentrate real cultural demand on a small set of premium phrase hacks, versus the format simply reading as confusing.