Five million domain names were added across all TLDs across the globe in the first quarter of 2014, replicating the number added in the fourth quarter of 2013, Verisign announced in their latest Domain Name Industry Brief, taking the total Domains Under Management to 276 million as of 31 March.The increase of five million domain names in the first quarter globally equates to a growth rate of 1.7 percent for the quarter, compared to 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter 2013. Worldwide registrations have grown by 19.3 million (18.5 million in the calendar year of 2013), or 7.5 percent (7.3%), year over year.The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth, reaching a combined total of approximately 128.5 million domain names in the adjusted zone in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a four percent increase year over year. This compares to the year ending 31 December 2013, when the figures were 127.2 million and five percent. As of 31 March, 2014, the DUM in .com equalled 113.2 million names (112m at the end of Q4), while .net equalled 15.2 million names, the same as for the end of Q4, 2013.New .com and .net registrations totalled 8.6 million during the first quarter of 2014. In the first quarter of 2013, new .com and .net registrations totalled 8.8 million. These figures were up on the fourth quarter of 2013 where new registrations were 8.2 million and 8.0 million in Q4 2012. This could reflect seasonal variations but it could also show new gTLDs aren’t impeding new .com registrations.In their report, Verisign provide some pieces of trivia, including the 69 percent of all .com websites are in English. Another two are that over 95 percent of networks are compromised in some way while internet users send 204 million emails per minute.Among ccTLDs, 27.1 million domain names were added, a 2.9 percent increase quarter over quarter, and a 13.1 percent increase year over year. Among the top TLDs overall, .ru (Russia) moved up one place to eighth, swapping places with .info.The largest TLDs in order by zone size were .com, .tk (Tokelau – 25.5m), .de (Germany – 15.7m), .net, .uk (United Kingdom – 10.5m – Nov 2013), .org (10.4m), .cn (China – 10.7m), .ru (Russian Federation – 4.9m – August 2013), .info (5.6m) and .nl (Netherlands – 5.5m).*Among the 20 largest ccTLDs, four exceeded 4 percent overall quarter-over-quarter growth: Tokelau (8.0 percent), Argentina (7.2 percent), India (15.2 percent) and Colombia (12.4 percent). This marks four straight quarters where Tokelau has exceeded 4 percent growth.As of 31 March, there were 283 global ccTLD extensions delegated in the root (including Internationalised Domain Names), with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 65.8 percent of all ccTLD registrations.Again as of 31 March, there were 198 new gTLDs delegated into the root; 125 of which were delegated during the first quarter of 2014.During the first quarter of 2014, Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 85 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 120 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 3.4 percent and the peak increased 20.6 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 14.8 percent and the peak query load increased 6 percent.As more companies bring their businesses online, there is an increased concern over domain name security. This quarter’s featured article, “The Domain Threat Landscape: Protecting Critical Infrastructure Requires a Layered Security Approach” provides a brief summary of domain name hijacking and some preventative measures and tools to help ensure your domain name is secure.The report is available for download from:
www.verisigninc.com/en_US/innovation/dnib/index.xhtml * Registry statistics are sourced from RegistrarStats.com, domain-recht.de and individual registries. Registries sometimes do not provide up to date statistics publicly which explains discrepancies.