Domain Registrations hit 112 million
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) is reporting that over 112M domains have been registered as of the end of Q3 2006.
A record number of domain names are now registered, at 112 million, which is 30% higher than just one year ago and 6% higher than the previous quarter. The five largest TLDs remain .com, .de (Germany), .net, .uk (Britain), and .org.
9.4 million new domains were registered during Q3, the third highest number of registrations ever in a single quarter. New registrations actually decreased compared to Q2, but this is mostly because of the upsurge of .eu registrations in Q2.
ccTLDs (country domains) continued to see growth. There are 248 ccTLDs and five of them saw double digit growth compared to the previous quarter: .at (Austria), .es (Spain), .fr (France), .ru (Russia), and .us (United States).
.Us domains continue to sell in the aftermarket. This year’s biggest reported .us sales include Models.us for $30,000 and Jew.us for $29,500, according to DNJournal.
Domain registrations continue to be buoyed by investors that park domains. These parked domains generate revenue from pay-per-click ads, typically serviced by Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Approximately 24% of .com and .net domain names are parked according to Verisign.
Where exactly is Verisign reporting this? I don’t see it in DNJournal, the only link in the entry, or on Verisign’s site.
Larry, it’s from their most recent Domain Name Industry Brief.