Top Level Domains Exceed 201 Million in Third Quarter of 2010
By Anna Johnson on December 8th, 2010In the three months ended September 2010, the global base of top level domain names (TLDs) reached a huge 201.8 million domain name registrations. TLDs grew by 3.8 million domain names (2 percent) over the second quarter and by 13.3 million (7 percent) over the third quarter of last year.
According to VeriSign’s third quarter ‘Domain Name Industry Brief’, the base of Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) reached 79.2 million domain names, growing by 1.4 percent over Q2 2010 and by 2.4 percent over Q3 2009.
The .com and .net TLDs also saw strong growth during the third quarter, exceeding a combined 103 million. While new .com and .net registrations – over 7.5 million in Q3 – were 6 percent less than in Q2 2010, they were up by 7 percent year-over-year. The Q3 decline accords with historical third quarter seasonal declines.
Among the ccTLDs to grow the most during the third quarter were those of the Russian Federation, Brazil, Argentina and Australia, each of which experienced 4 percent quarter-over-quarter growth. The Russian Federation, Brazil, Australia, Poland and France also had 20 percent year-over-year growth in ccTLD registrations.
As at the end of the third quarter, the largest TLDs and ccTLDs in terms of base size were as follows:
- .com
- .de (Germany)
- .net
- .uk (United Kingdom)
- .org
- .info
- .cn
- .nl (Netherlands)
- .eu (European Union)
- .ru (Russian Federation)
In terms of domain name renewals, the combined .com and .net renewal rate for the third quarter was 72.8 percent, down slightly from 73.2 percent in Q2. Meanwhile, VeriSign also found that, in the third quarter, 88 percent of domain names resolved to websites, auguring well for continued high renewal rates.
