Demand for .com addresses keeps climbing, even as many beauty marketers lean away from their own storefronts this holiday season. Verisign recorded 13.1 million new .com and .net registrations in the third quarter, up from 10.6 million a year earlier and a new quarterly record. Almost all of the growth came from .com, whose base rose from 166.6 million to 169.8 million, and the company raised its 2026 domain base growth guidance to 6.5% to 7.0%.
For salon and spa decision-makers, our reading is simple: the pool of short, exact category names is not getting any larger, while the number of businesses competing for attention online keeps growing.
“Brands take their own channels and especially physical stores for granted”
Glossy
Owned channels are slipping on the holiday plan
A Glossy+ Research survey of 90 brand and retailer professionals found that only 46% plan to use owned e-commerce sites this holiday season, compared with 69% in 2025. Planned use of owned physical stores fell from 84% to 60%. Yet respondents still said these channels gain importance during the holidays, with 67% saying so of owned stores and 49% of owned e-commerce sites.
Glossy reported that A-Frame Brands founder Ari Bloom pointed to complacency, while a Mastercard executive attributed the shift to shoppers no longer following a predictable path to purchase. Separately, Glossy reported that shopping journeys are splintering across social platforms, search and AI-assisted discovery, and that up to 30% to 50% of affiliate spend is misattributed under last-click models.
For salon groups and booking platforms, this suggests that rented channels are getting noisier and harder to measure. A memorable owned address is one of the few places where a business controls the first impression and the data. In our view, a category .com such as SalonandSpa.com works as a fixed point that shoppers can type, remember and trust, wherever their journey started.
Two disputes, two lessons on control
Recent arbitration cases show why early, clear ownership matters. In the WindSpace.com case, a Danish company that had tried to buy the name in 2009, 2014 and 2022 filed a complaint against a domain registered in 1999, years before it held trademark rights. The panel cited the domain's prior legitimate use and the natural meaning of the term in renewable energy, denied the complaint and found Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
In the KeloCoteMall.com case, a former China distributor's affiliate had registered the domain in 2019 and used it to sell the brand's genuine products. After the relationship ended, the brand's complaint was denied, and the domain stayed with the respondent, with the panel suggesting the broader fight belonged in court or other proceedings.
For beauty companies, our takeaway is twofold. Descriptive, dictionary-meaning names held for real use are hard to take away from a legitimate owner. And brands that let distributors, franchisees or agencies register key domains may find that recovering them later is slow and uncertain. Spa brands and salon franchisors would be wise to register important names in the company's own name from day one.
What to watch next
Verisign plans a .web trademark sunrise in mid-December, followed by a limited registration period from mid-January 2027 in which most .com registrants could obtain the matching .web name. Pricing for that phase has not been set.
For salon and spa owners, this suggests that holding the exact .com may also position a business to secure related extensions on favorable terms. In our opinion, the practical steps this quarter are to audit who legally holds each company domain, consolidate control, and treat a strong category address as long-term infrastructure rather than a seasonal marketing line item.
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