In its just-released Domain Name Industry Brief for 2008, VeriSign reveals that 2008 ended with 177 million domain names registered across the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs) such as .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz. This was a 16 percent increase in registered domain names over the previous year, and a 2 percent rise over the third quarter of 2008.

VeriSign found that Country Code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs) totaled 71.1 million domain names, a 22 percent increase year-over-year and a three percent increase quarter-over-quarter.

Over 10.1 million new TLDs were registered in the last quarter of 2008. This, however, represents a slow-down in domain name registrations. The number reflects a decline of 12 percent from the number of domain name registrations in the third quarter 2008, and a 17 percent decline from the same quarter in 2007. In its report, VeriSign says the decline is due to slower growth in both global TLD and ccTLD registrations.

In terms of total registrations, .com is still the most popular TLD, followed by .cn (China), .de (Germany), .net, .org, .uk (United Kingdom), .info, .nl (The Netherlands), .eu (European Union), and .biz.

In relation to renewals, VeriSign found that the renewal rate for .com and .net for the third quarter of 2008 (data wasn’t yet available for the final quarter) was 72 percent, below the renewal rate in the same quarter in 2007 (74 percent) and in 2006 (77 percent).

VeriSign says the lower rate of new registrations and renewals alike, reflects, among other things, a lower number of domains being registered or renewed in order to participate in online advertising networks. This, in turn, is due to lower advertising revenues being achieved by advertising-driven websites (whether parked sites, Adsense sites, CPA sites or other content sites based on an advertising model).

Interestingly, VeriSign also found that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names actually resolved to a website (i.e. a website appeared when attempting to visiting the given domain name). Of the 90 million .com and .net domain names analyzed, 24 percent resolved to one page websites, which VeriSign defines to include sites under-construction, ‘brochure-ware’ and parked pages, as well as online advertising revenue generating parked pages.

63 percent of domains resolved to multi-page websites, while 12 percent had no associated websites.

All in all, the report indicates an industry hit by the down economy. However, it would be wrong to suggest that it’s all doom and gloom for, say, domain name investors. While we’ve certainly seen more domainers admit to lower parking revenues and some even putting their domain name portfolios on the market, we’ve also seen returns from our own domain name portfolio continue to grow.

On that basis, it seems more apparent than ever, that it pays to be smart and strategic about investing in domain names, as with any other kind of investment.

Source: VeriSign, “The Domain Name Industry Brief Volume 6 – Issue 1 – February 2009,” February 2009

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Domain Names, News and Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.