.com/.net domain renewal — preliminary 75.0% Q4 2025 (final 75.4% Q3 2025); low-to-mid-70s since 2004

Claim: Verisign / DNIB.com: the preliminary combined .com/.net renewal percentage was 75.0% for Q4 2025 (final 75.4% for Q3 2025 vs 72.2% a year earlier; 72.7% final for Q2 2024). Roughly one-quarter of domains due to renew lapse each cycle. An academic analysis of VeriSign briefs found the .com/.net renewal rate has sat in the low-to-mid-70s since 2004.

Source: DNIB.com (Verisign) Domain Name Industry Brief.

Confidence: Verified (registry data).

Caveat: Domains ≠ DIY sites. Many builder sites use vendor subdomains and never have a domain. A renewed domain may point at nothing. This is a proxy, not a direct measurement of DIY-site longevity.

Why this matters for Candid: The cleanest independent longevity number that exists. When pairing with vendor retention (~85% — GoDaddy FY2025 10-K — ~85% customer retention (84% in 2024 due to divestitures); 90% for >3-year cohort), the gap (~10pp) is some combination of survivor-only bias in the vendor figure and the domain↔site mismatch.