The first quarter of 2015 closed with a base of 294 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of six million domain names, or 1.9 percent over the fourth quarter of 2014. Registrations have grown by 17.8 million, or 6.5 percent, year over year.Verisign also reported that .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the first quarter of 2015, "reaching a combined total of approximately 133.0 million .com and .net domain names in the domain name base. This represents a 3.1 percent increase year over year. As of March 31, 2015, the domain name base of .com equaled 117.9 million names, while .net equaled 15.1 million names."
The largest TLDs (top-level domains) in order by zone size (gTLDs are shown ALL CAPS, all others are ccTLDs) were .COM, .tk,.de, .NET, .cn, .uk, .ORG, .ru, .nl and .INFO. The order of the top TLDs in terms of zone size did not change from the fourth quarter of 2014. (Note that .tk "is a free ccTLD that provides free domain names to individuals and businesses. Revenue is generated by monetizing expired domain names. Domain names no longer in use by the registrant or expired are taken back by the registry and the residual traffic is sold to advertising networks. As such, there are no deleted .tk domain names.")
The new gTLDs (new generic top-level domains) which have suffered very disappointing registration numbers and Universal Acceptance problems--"failing to work as expected on the internet"--total less than 2% of all domain name registrations worldwide:
As of March 31, 2015, new gTLD (ngTLD) registrations totaled 4.8 million, which represents 1.6 percent of total domain name registrations. The top 10 ngTLDs represented 43 percent of all ngTLD domain name registrations.
Verisign also reported:
"In the first quarter, Verisign processed 8.7 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.6 million domain names for the same period in 2014. During the first quarter of 2015, Verisign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 119 billion across all TLDs operated byVerisign, with a peak of 165 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 8.6 percent and the peak increased 13.1 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 40.2 percent and the peak query load increased 37.9 percent.
"With changes to search algorithms that favor websites that look and perform better on mobile devices, non-mobile friendly website owners, including many small businesses, fear their search rankings will plummet. As online commerce continues to grow and as people continue to turn to the Internet when looking for information, this quarter's feature article, "'Mobilegeddon': Good for Small Business?" touts the benefits of mobile websites for business and why small businesses should make this a top priority."
The Domain Name Industry Brief is provided by Verisign for Internet users throughout the world, and includes statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry. The first quarter 2015 Domain Name Industry Brief, and previous period reports, can be obtained at VerisignInc.com/DNIB.
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"With changes to search algorithms that favor websites that look and perform better on mobile devices, non-mobile friendly website owners, including many small businesses, fear their search rankings will plummet. As online commerce continues to grow and as people continue to turn to the Internet when looking for information, this quarter's feature article, "'Mobilegeddon': Good for Small Business?" touts the benefits of mobile websites for business and why small businesses should make this a top priority."
The Domain Name Industry Brief is provided by Verisign for Internet users throughout the world, and includes statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry. The first quarter 2015 Domain Name Industry Brief, and previous period reports, can be obtained at VerisignInc.com/DNIB.
Follow @DomainMondo
