Domain Registrars: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domain registrar leads the October 2026 benchmark in valid recommendation coverage?
• How wide is the gap between the top two registrars this month?

Porkbun leads the Domain Registrars benchmark in October 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 61.9%, up from a baseline of 0.0% in July 2026. The gap to the next brand, Namecheap at 61.6% in October 2026, stands at 0.3 percentage points. The largest coverage increase since baseline came from Porkbun, moving from 0.0% in July 2026 to 61.9% in October 2026, a rise of 61.9 points. No brand declined against its July 2026 baseline this month; the only brand not classified as a significant riser, Network Solutions, posted a 0.3 point gain that sits within normal month-to-month variation. Eight brands were classified as significant risers against baseline, led by Porkbun and Namecheap, each up more than 61 points since July 2026.

Month over month, Porkbun rose 6.3 points from 55.6% in September 2026, and Namecheap rose 5.9 points from 55.7% in September 2026, both moves beyond normal variation for the brand. The category's movement this month is concentrated at the top: Porkbun and Namecheap now sit within 0.3 points of one another, while Dynadot (26.4% in October 2026) and GoDaddy (24.8% in October 2026) hold the middle tier and Squarespace (22.3% in October 2026) follows. The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 645 qualified observations in October 2026.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth refers to the number of canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Valid recommendation shortlist share stood at 56.9% in September 2026 before rising to 68.7% in October 2026, and recommendation-shaped answer share stood at 38.5% in September 2026 before rising to 51.2% in October 2026.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Domain Registrars

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• Why do brand-level percentages use qualified observations instead of the raw 800 prompt observations?
• How many of the raw prompt-surface observations qualified for the October 2026 benchmark?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology for full details.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domain registrars lead in presence and valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do top-three and rank-one rates separate the leading registrars from the rest of the field?

This table shows the primary current-month benchmark view for October 2026, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned, regardless of recommendation status.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is recommended among the top three options.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommended option.
• Net sentiment: Positive minus negative mention sentiment, scaled to mentions.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domain registrars posted the largest recommendation coverage gains since the July 2026 baseline?
• Did any registrar decline against its baseline this month?

Eight brands were classified as significant risers from baseline, with gains beyond normal month-to-month variation. Network Solutions was classified as stable, posting a 0.3 point gain considered within normal variation.

Largest Increase: Porkbun

Porkbun posted the largest movement in the series, rising from 0.0% in July 2026 to 61.9% in October 2026, a gain of 61.9 points beyond normal variation. Month over month, Porkbun rose 6.3 points from 55.6% in September 2026, a move beyond normal variation for the brand, and has now risen in each of the three months since August 2026. Porkbun also holds the highest top-three rate in the category at 53.0% in October 2026 and the highest rank-one rate at 18.3%.

Largest Decline: Name.com

No brand declined against its July 2026 baseline this month, so no baseline decline can be named. Name.com recorded the longest consecutive monthly decline in the series, moving down across two consecutive months: from 7.0% in August 2026 to 4.0% in September 2026, and to 3.7% in October 2026. The most recent month-over-month move was down 0.3 points, within normal variation. Domain.com's most recent monthly move was up 0.9 points in October 2026, within normal variation, following a dip from 2.8% in August 2026 to 1.6% in September 2026.

Category Leader: Porkbun

Porkbun leads the category with a valid recommendation coverage of 61.9% in October 2026, up from a July 2026 baseline of 0.0%. Namecheap is a close second at 61.6% in October 2026, and holds the highest presence rate in the category at 97.7%. The two leaders are separated by 0.3 percentage points, the narrowest gap at the top of the series.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Can registrars with similar recommendation coverage still differ in how often they rank first?
• Which registrars appear most often in top-three recommendations?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands, placement rates reveal different patterns.

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates: Porkbun and Namecheap hold comparable valid recommendation coverage in October 2026 (61.9% and 61.6%), yet Porkbun's rank-one rate of 18.3% exceeds Namecheap's 17.1%.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

All qualified observations in October 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand-recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing or comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

Questions This Section Answers

• How has the recommendation coverage leader changed across each monthly measurement in this series?
• Which measurements produced the largest single-movement shifts in the benchmark?

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What does the source presence layer capture about the information environment behind AI recommendations?
• Does a cited source necessarily cause the registrar recommendation it appears alongside?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response to a given query
• Organic-search ranking positions
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in this measurement period?
• How concentrated are citations among the top domains compared to the full citation universe?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,532 citations were observed, spanning 904 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top ten domains account for a minority of the 6,532 citations observed across 904 unique domains. Three tracked brand domains appear in the top ten, godaddy.com, networksolutions.com, and namecheap.com, and no single source type dominates, with video, community, official brand, website-builder, infrastructure, and news properties all present.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands appear in AI-generated recommendations across canonical AI/search surface families. It is a neutral, industry-level measurement of presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Index
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

Get a Company-Level Authority Index

The public industry benchmark shows category-level standings. A company-level Authority Index can go deeper.

Get my free AI Company Index