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Global Domain Name Registrations Climb 5 Million to 220 Million: Verisign

Verisign logoThe number of domain names registered around the world continues its never-ending rise, with the registered domain name base climbing to nearly 220 million registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs) at the end of the third quarter in 2011 according to the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief. This represents an increase of 4.9 million registrations, or 2.3 per cent, over the second quarter of 2011. This marks the third straight quarter with greater than two percent growth.

The internet saw the addition of 4.5 million domain names in the first quarter (a 2.2 per cent increase) and 5.2 million domain names in the second quarter (a 2.5 per cent increase).

The combined base of registrations for the .COM and .NET TLDs reached 112 million names combined at the end of the third quarter of 2011, which marks a 5.9 per cent increase year-over-year in new registrations and makes up around 51 per cent of the domain name base across all TLDs. While Verisign does not break up registrations for .COM and .NET, there were almost 100 million .COM registrations, leaving around 12 million .NET registrations, meaning.COM makes up around 45 per cent of all registrations.

The order of the top TLDs in terms of zone size changed when compared to the second quarter, as .TK (Tokelau) entered the rankings as the seventh largest TLD and third largest ccTLD, dropping .NL (Netherlands) from seventh to eighth. Also, .RU (Russian Federation) and .EU (European Union) changed places from the second quarter and are now the ninth and tenth largest, respectively. Finally, .cn (China) is no longer in the top 10 after ranking eighth in the previous quarter.

The largest TLDs in terms of base size were, in order, .COM, .DE (Germany), .NET, .UK (United Kingdom), .ORG, .INFO, .TK, .NL, .RU AND .EU.

Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the quarter was 59 billion, with a peak of 78 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 5 percent and the peak increased 14 percent.

To download the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief, see www.verisigninc.com/en_US/why-verisign/research-trends/domain-name-industry-brief/index.xhtml.