Domain Auction Report — October 12–18, 2026

More inventory hit the block this week than last, but buyers did not keep pace. Auctions ended rose +8.2% to 435,805, while sold domains rose only +0.4% to 11,021, so sell-through slipped to 2.5% (−0.2pp). The competitive segment was essentially flat at 4,444 sales above $1, and 59.7% of all sales remained $1 closeouts.

The price picture split. The median competitive sale fell from $90 to $85, while the 90th-percentile price edged up from $605 to $610. That may indicate a softer middle of the market alongside a steady upper tail, but this data does not show why. At the very top, 6364.com closed at $42,500. That sits below last week's $53,100 top sale, though both figures are single auctions rather than a market-wide measure.

Short numeric .coms set this week apart. Four-digit names took the top four slots, and many of the numeric sales on both leaderboards ended on 2026-10-14. Most of these show no DR value, yet several closed well above their valuations, so DR clearly did not set their prices.

Key takeaways

• 435,805 domain auctions ended this week; 11,021 sold (2.5% sell-through, −0.2pp week-over-week).
• Top sale: 6364.com closed at $42,500.
• 4,444 sales closed above $1 (competitive segment); their median price was $85 (−5.6% vs last week). The remaining 59.7% of sales were $1-closeout pickups.
• Total bids cast on ended auctions: 60,407 (−1.2% week-over-week).
• Of 67,656 domains AI-classified this week, 2,926 (4.3%) were labeled clean based on the available backlink, archive, and traffic evidence.

The week in numbers

Ended auctions grew much faster than sales, while competitive sales and total bids barely moved. One possible reading is that extra supply this week was absorbed mostly as unsold inventory rather than drawing new bidding.

Top sales of the week

Valuation was an unreliable guide for the numeric names: 6364.com closed far above its valuation, while 6427.com closed far below its own despite a similar profile and the same end date. Buyers pricing numeric .coms may want to compare recent closed sales of similar patterns rather than rely on a single model estimate.

Bid wars: the most contested auctions

Only 7121.com appears on both this list and the top-sales list, and most of the heavily bid auctions closed in the low four figures. On this data, high bid counts tracked contested mid-priced names more than top prices.

Live now: the auctions to watch this week

Every live pick's current price sits below its listed valuation, but these are in-progress bids, not closing prices. Several names carry prior-organization history (canoo.com, lll.org, rarecoins.com), so a trademark and archive check before bidding is a concrete next step.

Value picks: clean-history aged domains under $100

Several of these $1 names are tied to identifiable companies, products, or projects (harrisgeospatial.com, predpol.com, cielo24.com, rdflib.net), and keenland.com is described as tied to the Keeneland brand. A clean label screens backlink, archive, and traffic evidence, not trademark exposure, so a separate brand-rights check is warranted.

Category landscape: what entered the market

Every category shows the same $1 median price and a median DR between 1 and 3, so category medians alone do not separate opportunity. Any value differences sit in the tail of each category, which these medians do not capture.

Niche radar

SEO, SEO services, and link building are three of the four largest niches, and the same names recur across lists (companyframe.com in two niches, skipmcgrath.com also among the clean picks). Given that most classified inventory was labeled caution, buyers in SEO-adjacent niches may want to review anchor-text profiles for link-selling footprints before buying.

Spam-risk read on the week's inventory

Caution is effectively the default outcome, and clean labels outnumber toxic ones several times over. A clean label narrows the field rather than clearing a domain, and caution-labeled names need their specific flagged signals reviewed rather than being dismissed outright.

• 67,656 domains were AI-classified this week from their full enrichment bundles (backlink anchors, archive history, traffic).
• 2,926 (4.3%) were labeled clean based on the available evidence; that label is a screening signal, not a guarantee.
• 63,677 (94.1%) were labeled caution and 492 (0.7%) were labeled toxic after signals such as pharma/casino anchors or PBN patterns were evaluated.

Domains worth a closer look

• 6364.com — Topped the week at $42,500 with a DR of 0 and a valuation of $18,636, so its price clearly did not rest on link metrics.
• 6427.com — A four-digit .com with a valuation of $19,810 that closed at $8,200 on the same day other four-digit names cleared well above their valuations, which makes it a useful reference point for pricing this pattern.
• invisionfree.com — DR 73 and 9,331 referring domains drew 182 bids and a close of $6,803 against a $2,249 valuation; anyone eyeing similar legacy platform domains should review the anchor and archive history behind that link profile.
• spanishtable.com — Closed at $7,850 against a $1,484 valuation with DR 41 and 1,745 referring domains, one of the widest gaps above valuation among non-numeric top sales.
• flheadstart.org — Drew 138 bids and closed at $2,226 against a $79 valuation; its name and Education category may indicate a prior program site, so archive and naming-rights checks seem prudent for comparable names.
• viprow.me — A 2020 registration that drew 160 bids to close at $2,350 versus a $544 valuation; reviewing archived content would help clarify what that bidding was pricing.
• 49566.com — The most-bid auction of the week at 204 bids, closing at $6,238 against a $2,438 valuation.
• canoo.com — Live at $3,810 with DR 67 and 3,994 referring domains, and described as formerly used by EV startup Canoo; trademark status and backlink anchors are worth checking before bidding.
• canoo.net — Listed at $31 with DR 56 while canoo.com is live in the thousands; one possible use is as a companion name, though the same prior-brand checks apply.
• keenland.com — Labeled clean at $1 with 3,303 referring domains, but its description ties it to the Keeneland brand, so trademark exposure needs separate review.
• predpol.com — Labeled clean at $11 with DR 61, but its description ties it to predictive-policing analytics, and that association may carry reputational baggage a buyer should research.
• lll.org — Live at $1,525 with an end date of 2026-10-25, and described as carrying La Leche League history; checking whether that organization still uses the name is a sensible first step.
• companyframe.com — Appears in both the seo and link building niches, so its anchor-text profile deserves a close look before any purchase.

Takeaway

Before acting on any name in this report, pull its backlink anchors and archive snapshots to see what drove its classifier label, and run a trademark search on any domain tied to a former company, product, or organization. For numeric .coms, compare recent closed sales of the same length and pattern rather than relying on a single valuation, since this week's results show those estimates diverging sharply from actual closes.

Methodology & data notes

This report is generated from CatchSEO's own auction database: 435,805 auctions that ended from October 12–18, 2026 (UTC), benchmarked against 402,615 from October 5–11, 2026, alongside 791,688 live auctions currently tracked.

Domain intelligence comes from CatchSEO's enrichment pipeline — backlink profiles and authority metrics, Wayback Machine archive history, and an AI classification pass that reads each domain's complete evidence bundle and issues category, spam-risk, and quality verdicts. 67,656 domains were classified this week; classification covers enriched inventory only, so older or unenriched domains may appear without AI fields.

"Sold" means an auction ended with at least one bid; prices are final listed auction prices in USD. Classifier labels are screening signals based on available evidence, not guarantees that a domain is safe or suitable. Every figure in this report is computed directly from the database, and the commentary refers only to figures and domains shown in it. The report is published every week. Compare the rolling figures in Domain Sale Prices: Live Auction Statistics, search live domain auctions, or follow the expired-domain spam-checking guide.

Review the CatchSEO research methodology, browse the expired-domain resource center, search live domain auctions, or continue with the expired-domain guides.

Data snapshot 2026-10-19. Figures are computed directly from CatchSEO's auction database.