.sell
Is .sell a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.sell is contested: 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are Identity Digital, Intercap and Link Freedom Group.
Who is applying, and what they run today
Two of the three already run TLDs, 14.81M names between them. Two run one of .sell's closest 2012 strings: Identity Digital .forsale and Identity Digital .sale. Link Freedom Group runs none.
Will names sell?
A commerce verb that suits promo and listing pages, but few serious businesses would make .sell their main address; expect price-driven use.
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. .sell’s closest 2012 strings hold .buy 2, .sale 16K and .forsale 4K.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .buy, held 2 names, June 2026. .sale held 15,940; .forsale held 4,310. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
The exact mirror-image bet: a bare, unqualified transaction verb that no single company owns, whose value depends entirely on a registry convincing merchants and marketplaces that a commerce-action word can carry a primary storefront identity rather than a redirect.
Same generic-commerce-primitive wager — a one-syllable transaction word with no industry vertical or community behind it, sold to the same retailer/marketplace/portfolio-registry buyer on the same premise that the act of selling is worth putting in the address.
Same seller-side commerce intent and same open-generic pool, but as a listing marker (an item is for sale) rather than the seller's own identity word, so the buyer is more likely a classifieds/inventory page than a business anchoring its brand there.
Where they meet elsewhere
Identity Digital and Link Freedom Group face each other in 68 contests this round, .sell included.
- Identity Digital × Link Freedom Group
- Identity Digital × Intercap
- Link Freedom Group × Intercap
marketplaces, classifieds operators, resale and consignment platforms, and direct-response marketers wanting an action-verb domain for listing or campaign pages rather than a primary brand identity
What a .sell domain is
.sell is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our Commerce category. 3 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .sell domain extension real yet?
.sell 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 .sell domain?
You can’t yet. A .sell 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 .sell was .buy, delegated on 5 December 2015.
Is .sell a real TLD?
Not yet. .sell is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .sell is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- 2 applicants · first recordedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · now confirmedICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“IRI2679T-T88066 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-207 LFGL2683T-T50983 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-207 OD2692T-T13279 · Oyster Dream, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-207”ICANN
“.sell · Commerce · “Make the deal, seal the moment.””Link Freedom Group
- I place .sell at the bottom of the usable-but-limited band (30-49). It is not in the strong-niche band above because, by analogy with existing commerce-verb strings such as .sale and .buy (analogy, outcomes from general industry knowledge: thin genuine primary-identity use, heavy price-driven and promotional registration), a verb aimed at the seller's own action reads awkwardly as an identity: businesses want to signal what buyers get (.shop, .store) rather than what the registrant is doing, so sustained primary-identity demand is unlikely within 5 years. It is not in the vanity/joke band below because the word is a core commercial term with real defensive, campaign, and listing-page utility, so registrations at volume on price are plausible rather than purely event-driven novelty. The tagline positions it for deal-moment marketing, consistent with campaign rather than identity use. Applicant facts are neutral context: LFG filed more than 300 strings in the 2026 round and published its list, which says little about dedicated marketing muscle behind this one string. My main market uncertainty is whether the resale and recommerce wave (peer-to-peer selling apps, live selling) adopts an action-verb namespace for seller storefronts; if 'yourname.sell' became a recognized seller-page convention, demand would look materially stronger than the promo-page baseline I assume.