Which three endings to register for your name
Register the .com, the ending you build on and your market's country code. A defensive .net or .co costs a renewal every year.
Chapter 11 of 12, 13 min read
You have chosen your word and the ending you will build on. At the registrarRegistrarThe company you buy and renew a domain through, such as Namecheap or GoDaddy. It does not own the name, it only registers it for you.Read the definition's checkout, one box is ticked: it offers to protect your brand on eight more endings for one price. Your co-founder asks whether three endings would do, or whether you need ten. Without a rule, founders buy everything in the box or only the one name, and both choices cost them later.
By the end you can name the three endings a business needs and what each one does. You can explain why a fourth ending is a yearly bill with no buyer, and why a complaint rarely recovers a .com registered before you or in good faith. You can read your word's endings in Browse, check one name on the website's checker, and register the three before anyone hears the name.
What you will be able to do
- You can name the three endings a business needs and say what each one does.
- You can say why a defensive ending costs a renewal every year and finds no buyer later.
- You can explain why a complaint usually fails against a name registered before your trademark or in good faith.
- You can read your word's endings in Browse and check one full name on the website's checker.
Three endings, each with a job
The .com is the ending people type when they have only heard the name, and the address they guess when they email you. The ending you build on is the one on your site and your cards. Your market's country code, such as .de, .fr or .co.uk, is what customers there type first.
If the ending you build on is the .com, two of the three are the same name. A company that builds on .io and sells in Germany holds three names: the .io, the .com and the .de. The two endings it does not build on point at the main site.
The old advice was to add .net and .org as well. On Domain Name Wire on 1 June 2022, Andrew Allemann wrote that there are now too many endings to register the matching name in all of them, and advised being more selective. A brand going big may consider relevant endings, the same article added, and .net and .org are not necessarily needed.
Register the three the day you choose the name, before any announcement. Allemann's report on Domain Name Wire on 20 February 2026 describes a company that uses anyformat.ai. Its matching .com, first registered in 2009, went to a new holder in 2025, days after the company announced a major funding round. The company, that report said, seemed to have missed a chance to buy the .com at a reasonable price.
Three endings, and not the one that mattered
Case- The .com, acquired by its holder
- $4,120 (2023)
- Endings the founder held
- .co, .app and .io
- Trademark applications
- filed after the .com changed hands
- Outcome
- complaint denied, reverse hijacking found
A founder ran a business on a .co and also held the matching .app and .io, but not the .com. A WIPO decision went against that founder, as Andrew Allemann reported on Domain Name Wire on 19 June 2025. The holder of the .com had acquired it in 2023 for $4,120. The founder launched the business and filed trademarkTrademarkA registered right over a name inside one line of business. Owning a domain gives you no trademark, and a domain can collide with somebody else’s.Read the definition applications after that.
The founder tried to buy the .com and, when that failed, filed a complaint under the UDRPUDRPThe usual procedure for a trademark owner to claim a domain that copies their mark.Read the definition, the procedure for moving a name that was registered to abuse a trademark. The panelist found that the name was not registered or used in bad faith, because the holder had acquired it before any trademark application was filed and nothing showed that the founder was targeted.
The panel also found reverse domain name hijackingReverse domain name hijackingA panel’s finding that a dispute complaint over a name was filed in bad faith, for example after the complainant failed to buy the name.Read the definition, which means a complaint brought in bad faith. A complainant who fails to buy a name and then turns to the procedure risks that finding, the panel wrote. Both sides represented themselves.
The arithmetic is this: the founder held three endings, while the one people type went to someone else in 2023 for $4,120. The lesson is that a set without the .com protects nothing, and a .com acquired before your trademark filing is usually beyond the reach of the procedure. A held .com is bought, not disputed, and the lesson on buying a name someone already owns shows how.
Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 19 June 2025: Entrepreneur tries to reverse hijack his way into .com
The fourth ending is a bill with no buyer
A defensive ending is one you register so that nobody else does, and then never use. It costs you a renewalRenewalThe yearly fee that keeps a domain yours. You pay it for as long as you hold the name, and on some endings it costs far more than the first year did.Read the definition every year, and when the company renames or closes, nobody buys it.
Across the registrars we price, the median renewal of .com is $13.40, that of .net is $14.24, that of .io is $61.75 and that of .co is $35.10. Holding an unused ending for five years costs its first year plus four renewals. Our renewal trapRenewal trapA cheap first year followed by a renewal at least twice the first year and at least $10 more. The low price wins the sale, and the yearly fee afterwards is where the cost really is.Read the definition flag marks a registrar's price when the renewal is at least twice the first year and at least ten dollars above it.
On 10 November 2026, none of the 9 registrars we price carried that flag on .com or .net, while 2 of the 9 carried it on .io, 4 of the 9 on .co and 2 of the 9 on .org.
A bundle brings the same bill. A registrar's brand-protection box adds endings, and they renew with the main name until you remove them. Untick the box and register the three yourself. The next lesson covers the few variants that are worth taking.
What the missing .com costs: visitors and mail
Meta launched Threads on Threads.net in July 2023, while another app was using Threads.com. Elliot Silver relayed a web analytics company's figures for both addresses (DomainInvesting, 7 August 2023). Visits to Threads.com rose from 88,000 in June to 13.2 million in July, and Threads.net recorded 109.9 million. The public, the article said, assumes that a company is found on its .com.
For most businesses on another ending, Silver added, the loss is unclear. Threads was large enough for it to be measured.
Mail goes to the .com as well. Andrew Allemann recounted the story of 404 Media on Domain Name Wire on 29 December 2025. The news site started in 2023 on 404media.co, with $1,000 from each founder, while another company was using the .com. In 2025 the .com expired, and 404 Media won it at auction for $1,207.
The company forwards the .com to the .co, and it gave two reasons for owning the .com. The first is that nobody else should park and abuse an address that many people may reach by mistake. The second is that many people mistakenly email the .com.
The law firm whose clients wrote to the .com
Case- The firm's address
- Farrer.co.uk
- The .com at auction
- $3,100 (2012), it appears
- Chances to buy it
- a couple, the panel said
- Outcome
- complaint denied (2019)
Farrer & Co, a law firm that uses Farrer.co.uk, lost a complaint over Farrer.com, Andrew Allemann reported on Domain Name Wire on 16 July 2019. The firm had learned that clients were sending sensitive information to email addresses at the .com. If you do not have the .com of your name, the article said, you are likely missing emails meant for your company.
A three-member WIPO panel found that the firm had not shown that the holder, which runs an IT firm, lacked a legitimate interest in the name. Nor had the firm shown that the name was registered in bad faith. The panel noted that the firm could have obtained the name on a couple of occasions, because the name had changed hands twice since its registration in 1997.
It appears, Allemann wrote, that the current holder acquired the name in a NameJet auction in 2012 for only $3,100. The panel stopped short of finding that the complaint was brought in bad faith.
The arithmetic here is in years. The name was registered in 1997, it appears to have sold at auction in 2012 for $3,100, and its holder kept it in 2019. The lesson is that a country code serves the local market, while the .com still collects the mail. Each time the name changed hands, the firm had a chance to buy it.
Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 16 July 2019: Farrer & Co law firm loses cybersquatting dispute
Why a complaint will not get it back
The UDRP is the procedure a trademark owner uses to take a name that was registered to abuse the mark. A complaint must show three things: that the name matches the mark, that the holder has no legitimate interest in it, and that it was registered and is used in bad faith toward the mark.
WIPO announced on 24 January 2024 that a record 6,192 cases were filed in 2023 under the UDRP and national variations. Transfer was the dominant outcome, and about 14% of the cases were settled. Nearly all cases, Andrew Allemann wrote on Domain Name Wire on 6 January 2026, are clear-cut cybersquattingCybersquattingRegistering a domain to profit from somebody else’s trademark. The owner of the mark can bring a claim or go to court.Read the definition, which is abuse of a mark, and end in a transfer.
Your case is different when the holder was there first. The same article relayed a tracker's count of findings of reverse domain name hijacking across WIPO and FORUM: 86 in 2025, against 56 in 2024. One reason Allemann gave is that companies turn to the procedure as a last resort when they cannot buy the name.
Bad faith is judged at the time of registration, and toward your mark. A name registered before your business existed will therefore not normally be found to have targeted it.
In a case Allemann reported on Domain Name Wire on 2 April 2026, a company that uses nocapsports.io lost against a .com registered before its .io and before the company started trading. The company also drew a reverse hijacking finding, although the holder never replied.
A sale resets the date from which bad faith is judged. WIPO's Overview 3.0, which is its summary of panel views, says that a transfer to a new holder is not a renewal. A panel assesses bad faith from the day the current holder acquired the name. Before you file, take your own case to a lawyer.
Big brands buy blocks, and that is their choice
A company with a famous mark does a different sum. On Domain Incite on 28 September 2016, Kevin Murphy reported that registering one mark across Donuts' 197 endings at sunrise, at $200 or more a name, could near $40,000. SunriseSunriseThe first launch phase of a new ending, open only to trademark owners.Read the definition is the period when trademark owners register first.
Donuts is a registryRegistryThe organisation that runs an ending, like the company behind .com. It sets the rules and the price registrars pay.Read the definition, a company that runs endings. Its DPMLDPMLA block a registry sells to a trademark owner: one fee keeps the matching name from being registered on every ending that registry runs.Read the definition block, in the same 2016 report, cost about $3,000 for five years, which is about $3 a name a year, and its DPML Plus cost $9,999 for ten years.
Two newer blocks appear in a later report by Murphy (Domain Incite, 26 February 2024): GlobalBlock, which covers over 560 endings from about $6,000 a year, and NameBlock's exact-match block for the owner of a verified trademark, expected at $40 to $50 a name a year.
At sunrise, instagram.love carried a premium fee of $17,610, Murphy reported on Domain Incite on 5 June 2015, from figures that ICANNICANNThe body that sets the rules for domain names and approves new endings.Read the definition's Business Constituency supplied. The registry said that the brand could pay the normal fee. All of that is a brand's budget, not your rule.
Registries sell the matching name too. Verisign plans a period in which holders of a .com could register the matching .web, Allemann reported on Domain Name Wire on 23 July 2026. The price was not disclosed. A founder buys the three.
What the checker and Browse show
On the website, the availability checker answers for one full name that you type, the word together with its ending. It shows the status first. For a free name, it adds the first year's price, the registrar behind that price and the five-year costCost to holdWhat a name costs over five years: the first year plus four renewals.Read the definition. For a held name, it shows the asking price if the name is listed. You get one live check a day, and you need no account.
In Browse, on the Founder plan, type the word alone. The word's open and listed names come up, mixed with names of related words. Each card shows its status, and the table, under View settings, has a Status column. A missing ending may be held or outside the catalog, so check it in the website's checker. On the Investor plan, a full name in Browse opens the availability checker.
When you open a card, the drawer's Price and cost holds Year 1Year 1What a new domain costs to register for its first year. Registrars often lower it to win the sale, so it can be far below the renewal.Read the definition, Renewal and Five years. In the table, the hover on the Price column shows Price now and Sold by. Other endings, a section of the drawer, appears after you choose Run the full analysis, and it lists the word's endings that had a sale in 12 months.
Nothing bundles the three. Each Register button sends one ending to the registrar behind its price.
Before you open the checkout
The endings note to your team
You send this to your co-founders on the day you choose the name, before anyone posts it.
Our name is [word], and we build on [ending].
Today we registered three names at [registrar]: [word].com, [word].[ending] and [word].[country code]. Each one renews at [renewal] a year, and the two we do not build on are pointed at the main site.
We did not register .net, .org or the registrar's bundle, which renew every year and which nobody buys back.
Please do not post, pitch or print the name before [date], when the three are in the account.
[your name]
Ask the registrar to remove the bundle
You send this to your registrar's support when the checkout added endings you did not choose.
Hello,
My order [number] for [name] includes [the endings added], which I did not choose.
Please remove them, refund their price, and confirm that nothing in my account renews apart from [word].com, [word].[ending] and [word].[country code].
Please also confirm that those three keep renewing automatically on the card on file.
Thank you,
[your name]
Keep the reply with the order confirmation, and check the renewal list a month before the first renewal.
Run your word and the three
Your turn- Type your full name on the .com into the website's availability checker, which allows one live check a day without an account. Write down the status and, for a free name, the first year, the registrar behind it and the five-year cost.
- In Browse, on the Founder plan, type the word alone. Write down the status on the card or table row of each of your three endings. A missing ending may be held or outside the catalog.
- Open the name on the ending you build on. In the drawer, Price and cost holds Year 1, Renewal and Five years. Note the five-year figure for each of your three.
- Add the three five-year figures to get the cost of the set. If one is held, open the lesson on buying a name someone already owns before registering the others.
Sources
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, 5 June 2015: Are new gTLD registries ripping off brands with unfair sunrise fees?
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, 28 September 2016: For $10,000, Donuts will block hundreds of typos and premiums for your brand
- WIPO, May 2017: WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition, ("WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0")
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 16 July 2019: Farrer & Co law firm loses cybersquatting dispute
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 1 June 2022: 15 things to know before you register a domain
- Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, 7 August 2023: SimilarWeb Illustrates the .com Effect with Threads
- WIPO, 24 January 2024: Record Number of Domain Name Cases filed with WIPO in 2023
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, 26 February 2024: Dueling domain blocking services to launch at ICANN 79
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 19 June 2025: Entrepreneur tries to reverse hijack his way into .com
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 29 December 2025: 404 Media recounts buying 404media.com in expired domain auction
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 6 January 2026: 2025 in Review: Reverse domain name hijacking
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 20 February 2026: Misleading evidence leads to reverse domain name hijacking decision
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 2 April 2026: College sports endorsement business tries reverse domain name hijacking
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 23 July 2026: Verisign analysis: record quarter, .web match plan, and more
This course explains how the trade works. It is not legal or financial advice.