DNS - Internet Grows to Nearly 202 Million Domain Names

During the third quarter of 2010 the global base of Internet domain names grew by nearly 3.8 million based on the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc. the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.

The third quarter of 2010 ended with a base of almost 202 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs) which is around a 2 percent increase over the second quarter. Registrations have now grown by 13.3 million or 7 percent year-over-year.

New .com and .net registrations equalled 7.5 million during the third quarter which is an increase of 7 percent from a year ago. The combined base of .com and .net domain names surpassed 103 million. The .com/.net renewal rate for the third quarter was 72.8 percent, down from 73.2 percent for the second quarter. The base of Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) was 79.2 million domain names, a 2.4 percent increase from a year ago.

Based on VeriSign's (News - Alert) average daily Domain Name System (DNS) the query load during third quarter 2010 was 66 billion per day, reaching a peak of 78 billion. When compared to the same timeframe in 2009, the daily query average increased 23 percent and the peak grew by 27 percent.

During the past decade, the Internet has internationalized its audience and today the English-speaking world makes up less than 40 percent of Internet users. A decade ago, Africa had less than five million Internet users; now, it has more than 100 million. Back in 2000, Asia was essentially even with Europe and North America for users, today it has more than those two continents combined.

Based on the latest Domain Name Industry Brief also spotlights the importance of International Domain Names (IDNs), as the growth of the Internet spreads around the globe. To complement these IDN initiatives, VeriSign is contributing to an industry-led consortium to drive further adoption of IDN capabilities in standard client software.

The IDN Software Developer's Consortium last met in Amman, Jordan on Oct. 29, and included representatives from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong and Australia. The next consortium meeting will be in Cartagena, Colombia during the ICANN meeting.