.shift

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

AI & tech
applicants
  • Starlight RegistryAnnounced
on the record since Aug 19, 2026 · updated Aug 19, 2026
AI score
31/ 100
Usable but limited

A flexible English word that fits many brands loosely but no market tightly; fine as a clever address, rarely a company's main identity.

assessed by claude-fable-5 · Aug 19, 2026
AI score 31 of 100. .com scores 96, .ai scores 84.
who it’s for

startups and products with "shift" in the name (workforce scheduling, mobility, change/transformation brands), plus brandable-name hunters wanting a verb-suffix hack like get.shift or night.shift

techBrandCommerce
applicants
1 on file
Starlight RegistryAnnounced
Aug 19, 2026

One of 40 strings Starlight Registry (established by registrar Namecheap) applied for in the ICANN 2026 round, reported by Domain Name Wire on 2026-08-19.

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.

.runstrong parallel
delegated 2015 · live

Same bet as .shift: a common English action word with no native registrant class, so the registry is wagering that meaning gets supplied by the second level and by brand vibe rather than by any group whose identity already is the word.

2 applicants contested it · scored 35* in 2012 · run by Snow Park, LLC

.drivemoderate
delegated 2015 · live

Another multi-sense verb-noun (mechanical, motivational, technological) whose value comes from phrase completion and connotation rather than from a category of businesses that would file under it, though its 2012 application leaned corporate in a way .shift's generic pitch need not.

2 applicants contested it · scored 40* in 2012 · run by Charleston Road Registry Inc.

.nextmoderate
delegated 2016 · live

The same abstract movement/change word betting on momentum and transformation branding rather than on a profession, product category, or place, with the same problem that nobody's primary identity is the word itself.

uncontested · scored 30* in 2012 · run by Next plc

* 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. Starlight Registry · first recordedAug 19, 2026
    Domain Name Wire
news & sources
NewsNamecheap's Starlight Registry applies for 40 TLDs
Aug 19, 2026
For us, moving into the registry side is a natural extension of what we have been building.
Domain Name Wire
Considering a name on .shift?Appraise a name on this TLD →

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