According to VeriSign, more than five million domain names were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of registered domain names to more than 215 million worldwide across all domains.
The increase of 5.2 million domain names marks a growth rate of 2.5 percent over the first quarter.
The .com and .net Top Level Domains (TLDs) experienced aggregate growth, surpassing a combined total of 110 million names in the second quarter of 2011, representing a 1.8 percent increase in the base over the first quarter of 2011 and an 8.3 percent increase over the same quarter in 2010.
The top TLDs in terms of registrations remained largely unchanged between Q1 and Q2. The only change in the order was .cn (China) moving up one slot to become the world’s eighth largest TLD, and .eu (European Union) dropping one slot to become ninth largest. Taken together, country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) worldwide added a total of 2.9 million names in the second quarter.
VeriSign said its average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the quarter was 56 billion, with a peak of 68 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average declined 1 percent and the peak grew 1 percent.
The base of Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) was 84.6 million domain names, a 3.6 percent increase quarter over quarter, and an 8.4 percent increase year over year in the base.
In the second quarter of 2011, 2.9 million ccTLD domain names were added, brining total ccTLD registrations to approximately 84.6. This is an increase of approximately 6.6 million domain names, or 8.4 percent from a year ago. Among the 20 largest ccTLDs, Brazil, australia and spain each exceeded 4 percent quarter over quarter growth. Last quarter, seven of the top 20 exceeded the same threshold. Interestingly, despite there being more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, the top 10 ccTLDs comprise 60 percent of all registrations.
The renewal rate for .com/.net domains in the second quarter of 2011 was 73.1 percent. VeriSign estimates that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names resolve to a website, meaning that an end-user visiting that domain name would find a website, though an active site by VeriSign’s definition includes everything from full sites to under- construction and parked pages, making it tough to tell how many domains are actually being put to “real world” use.
The 2011 Second Quarter Domain Name Industry Brief is available here.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is expected to soon introduce hundreds of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the naming system, giving users a choice of an unprecedented array of top-level domains, from consumer domains like .shop and .bank to geographic ones like .nyc and .london.
Infrastructure providers, service operators and content providers are also ramping up preparedness for the deployment of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).
IPv6 is designed to replace the longstanding Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). Transition planning and adoption of IPv6 is critical to the on-going stability and growth of Internet Protocol based ICT, not only in the public Internet but in every facet of your office, home and mobile electronic existence where TCP/IP and other IP protocols are used. Training, management, support, billing, security and applications development need to be engaged to allow you to be IPv6 ready.
Related Reading: It’s Official. IPv4 is Out, Time to Transition to IPv6
Related Reading: Is IPv6 Part of your Risk Management Framework?
