.world Sells Global Scope You Still Have to Prove: ~677k Names, world.org Skipped the Suffix, and hello.world Is a Lander
Identity Digital's Binky Moon runs ~677k .world names—not Donuts without dates. Fix delegation (Sept 2014), GA (Jan 14 2015), poker.world $75k, oec.world & genki.world as live roofs, and trash the old guide's April 2015 timeline, estimated sales, and AIO semantic-TLD fluff.
NewName Editorial
Editorial Team
Say your URL out loud: we're at brand dot world. Does the listener hear international ambition—or a $2.98 promo that renews near $53?
That gap is the product. .world is an open English dictionary gTLD from ICANN's 2012 round, operated by Binky Moon, LLC c/o Identity Digital Inc. (the Donuts portfolio rebranded in 2023). The suffix can finish a sentence about cross-border trade, nomad insurance, or planetary data. It can also be cheap alphabet parked behind a /lander redirect. The thin guide this page replaces never separated those realities. It listed February 25, 2015 delegation and April 8, 2015 general availability when IANA and Gandi's launch notes document September 19, 2014 root entry and January 14, 2015 GoLive; credited "Donuts Inc." without Binky Moon or Identity Digital; pasted "estimated" sales (business.world $2,500, hello.world $1,200) with no NameBio receipts; named hello.world, open.world, green.world, startup.world, and music.world as notable sites when mid-2026 checks show 114-byte lander stubs or /lander redirects—not mission-aligned products; and recycled daily-TLD AIO boilerplate claiming descriptive suffixes help chatbots infer global scope. Unaudited, delete-on-sight.
The story worth telling: .world is Identity Digital's broadest geographic adjective TLD—wider than .global in everyday English, cheaper mindshare than .international in the URL bar, and ~677,000 names in the zone (rank #25 among new gTLDs per ntldstats.com, late July 2026)—yet the highest-profile "World" brand on the internet canonicalizes on world.org, not .world. When the biggest human-identity project skips your suffix, treat .world as rhetoric you must earn, not proof of reach.
What the contracts say—and what they do not
.world is an unrestricted gTLD: no residency, industry, or charter gate. ICANN signed the Registry Agreement with Bitter Fields, LLC (Donuts application vehicle) on 12 June 2014 (ICANN .world agreement). DNS delegation to the root: 19 September 2014 (IANA delegation report). Radix also applied; Donuts won an April 2014 private auction administered by Applicant Auction (ICANNWiki .world). In March 2018, Donuts consolidated original gTLD contracts under Binky Moon, LLC, dissolving per-TLD shell operators while keeping contractual obligations.
Registry operator (2026): Binky Moon, LLC c/o Identity Digital Inc. (Bellevue, Washington), per IANA—registration services at identity.digital, RDAP at https://rdap.identitydigital.services/rdap/.
| Phase | Dates | Source |
|-------|-------|--------|
| ICANN contract | 12 June 2014 | Bitter Fields, LLC |
| DNS delegation | 19 September 2014 | IANA root zone |
| Sunrise (TMCH) | through 3 January 2015 | Gandi .world sunrise |
| General Availability | 14 January 2015 | Gandi GoLive |
| Gandi GA shelf price | ~$38.34/yr (2015) | Same |
Contracts define who invoices registrars. "World" in the URL does not define who trusts you.
~677,000 names: scale without category lock-in
ntldstats.com in late July 2026 lists ~677,418 domains under management for .world—#25 among new gTLDs, between .today (~698k) and .buzz (~584k). That is a mid-tier Identity Digital crowd: materially larger than niche semantic strings, still a rounding error next to Verisign's .com base.
Volume is downstream of promo economics. First-year retail for standard names routinely hits ~$1.99–$2.98 at Sav, Namecheap, and peers in mid-2026 shelf checks. Renewals are the product: Namecheap lists ~$52.98/yr after Identity Digital's 6 October 2025 portfolio-wide wholesale hike—.world wholesale up ~11.1% per NamePros price-change thread (Namecheap blog shows .world renewal moving toward $52.98). dot.bs aggregator mid-2026: cheapest registration ~$1.99/yr (Sav), cheapest three-year average ~$13/yr (AWS Route 53)—registrar spread is wide. Model three years at your registrar's renewal, not the hero banner.
| Tier | Typical range (USD, mid-2026) | |------|------------------------------| | Standard registration (1 yr) | $2–$44 promo; shelf ~$44 pre-discount | | Standard renewal (1 yr) | $13–$53 (AWS ~$13; Namecheap ~$53 post-hike) | | Transfer | $44–$53 | | Registry premium (dictionary/short) | $100–$10,000+/yr—tier at EPP check (Identity Digital price categories) | | Verified aftermarket | Sparse; see receipts below |
Premium inventory is a separate business. Dictionary labels like travel.world, business.world, or poker.world can sit in registry premium tiers with elevated annual fees—always EPP-check before checkout.
Verified roofs—and the brochure names to delete
Skip Mad Libs. These mid-2026 checks return live, mission-aligned surfaces on .world itself:
oec.world — Observatory of Economic Complexity: global trade visualizations, subnational regions, product-level data—the hostname is the product scope (oec.world).
genki.world — Genki: health insurance for digital nomads ("Every country. Any doctor or hospital.")—global coverage as the pitch, not suffix decoration (genki.world).
atworld.world — AtWorld: travel comparison engine (WordPress/Yoast stack, indexed homepage)—tourism vertical where "world" reads literally (atworld.world).
motor.world — MOTOR.WORLD: German automotive content site (live WordPress)—category keyword left of the dot, suffix agrees (motor.world).
Notice the pattern: the second-level string forces global, travel, or category context before .world arrives. The TLD confirms the noun; it does not supply it.
Trash the old guide's "notable sites"—mid-2026 reality:
hello.world,open.world,green.world,startup.world,music.world— HTTP 200 with 114-byte HTML redirecting to/lander—broker/parking stubs, not coding tutorials, open-source platforms, environmental campaigns, startup communities, or music discovery products.poker.world— Live for-sale lander ("premium domain name for sale")—valid as aftermarket evidence, not as an operating poker brand. NameBio records $75,000 via TOP.DOMAINS on 15 August 2024—the largest reported.worldsale to date (NamePros coverage).motor.worldsold $9,999 the same day.sam.world— Not Sam Altman's World network. Altman's project (formerly Worldcoin) canonicalizes on world.org with identity onworld.id(ENS case study)—.org and.id, not.world. A@sam.worldSteemit handle from 2019 is unrelated personal blogging—not flagship adoption.
If a writer cannot link a live homepage whose product matches the claim, they have a template, not a notable.
Aftermarket: one real peak, many fabricated comps
The old guide's sales table—"estimated" prices for business.world, travel.world, hello.world, digital.world—has no NameBio anchors. Delete it.
Verified public comps worth citing:
| Domain | Price (USD) | Date | Venue | |--------|-------------|------|-------| | poker.world | $75,000 | 2024-08-15 | TOP.DOMAINS / NameBio | | motor.world | $9,999 | 2024-08-15 | TOP.DOMAINS / NameBio |
.world is not a high-velocity aftermarket like .com or .io. Liquidity is thin; holding periods are long. August 2024's poker.world spike proves category-keyword .world names can command five figures—not that your two-word leftover appreciates automatically.
world.org vs .world: the elephant the brochure skips
The most capitalized "World" brand in tech—World (Sam Altman, proof-of-human, WLD token)—runs world.org, not something.world. Identity lives on world.id. That choice matters: when a global human-network with Orb hardware, exchange listings, and Oxford Street flagships ** skips your TLD**, do not pitch .world as the default home for world-scale crypto or AI identity plays. Those projects still buy .io, .org, and ccTLD fashion (.ai guide). .world wins for plain-English global scope in marketing copy, not for Web3 canonical URLs.
SEO and AI search: descriptive, not a ranking cheat code
Google treats .world as a standard gTLD—no geographic ccTLD handling, no special regional boost. John Mueller's standing guidance: keywords in the TLD are not a ranking signal.
The old guide's AIO chain—"AI assistants might prioritize .world for global queries"—is speculative attribution without controlled studies. SERP snippets show title and description, not the suffix. oec.world ranks because OEC publishes authoritative trade data, not because .world whispers "international" to model weights.
Neutral playbook: HTTPS, Core Web Vitals, canonical tags, quality backlinks—see SEO-friendly domain names. Do not buy .world expecting algorithmic lift from the label.
Three tests—not a who-should matrix
Skip symmetric fit/skip columns. Run:
- Left-of-dot test. Does the second-level string already say global trade, travel, planet, or category—so
.worldconfirms instead of carries the meaning? - Canonical test. Will you publish the marketing site on
.world, or only defensively register while keeping.compublic? Defensive inventory ≠ brand proof. - Renewal test. Can you pay year-two pricing at your registrar without resentment? A $1.99 first year with $50+ renewal is a coupon, not a strategy.
Choose .world when you run cross-border data products, nomad/travel brands, NGOs with literal "world" in the name, or campaigns where brand.world reads cleaner than brandglobal.com to non-technical buyers—and you will canonicalize there. Pair with defensive .com before enterprise procurement.
Skip .world when .com is still the buyer's default in your industry (.com guide), when .org fits mission nonprofits better (.org guide), when engineer fashion beats geographic adjectives (→ .io guide), when AI product signaling matters more than "world" in English (→ .ai guide), or when mainland China is core (exotic gTLD ICP complexity—keep .cn/.com.cn operational).
Alternatives worth comparing:
.com— Global default; highest trust; scarce dictionary names..org— Mission and nonprofit grammar; World.org's choice over.world..global— Same Identity Digital cluster; more corporate "global" than plain "world.".international— Longer, explicit multinational signal..co— Short commercial alternative when "world" is overstatement.
FAQ
Who operates .world in 2026?
Binky Moon, LLC c/o Identity Digital Inc., per IANA.
When did .world launch?
DNS delegation 19 September 2014; general availability 14 January 2015 (Gandi GoLive).
How much does .world cost?
Promo registrations ~$2–$44; renewals ~$13–$53/yr depending on registrar—budget post-October 2025 Identity Digital hikes. Premium tiers cost more; EPP-check before purchase.
Is .world good for SEO?
Neutral as a gTLD. Rankings follow normal quality signals—not suffix semantics.
Can anyone register .world?
Yes. Unrestricted gTLD.
Why doesn't World (Worldcoin) use .world?
They canonicalize on world.org with identity on world.id—evidence that even "world-scale" brands may prefer .org/.id over this suffix.
Does UDRP apply?
Yes—standard UDRP.
Stress-testing global brand architecture across suffixes? Our domain search checks .world, .com, .org, .global, and 1,000+ extensions—or read Brand Name vs Domain Name before you canonicalize on brand.world.
