Have you ever wondered how many website owners would be present on the internet or how many websites are registered on daily or monthly basis? Well, there is some valid data available on the domain name registrations, which might help understand the trends in relation to the length and breadth of Web usage. VeriSign, which operates .com and .net registries globally on the Web, recently revealed in a report that there were more than 6 million new domain names registered during the last quarter that is between October and December in 2012. Such a huge number of registered domain names in the fourth quarter have taken the total number to over 252 million at a global level and across all TLDs (top-level domains) by the end of the year 2012.
Considering the domain name increase of 6.1 million with the numbers at the end of the third quarter, it can be seen that it was a growth rate of 2.5 percent over the previous quarter. The VeriSign report also stated that the last quarter of 2012 was the 8th straight quarter that showed a growth of more than 2 percent. The report additionally displayed that year over year, the number of registrations worldwide has grown by 11.8 percent or 26.6 million. In the adjusted zone for .net and .com, the .com and .net TLDs arrived at a combined domain name more than 121 million. According to the report, it was also observed that by the end of the year 2012, there were over 106 million domain names in the base of registered domain names in .com, while the numbers were close to 15 million in the base of registered domain names in .net.
The VeriSign report also gives an account of the renewal rates for domain names, which keep varying over different quarters based on the contribution of particular registrars, as well as the expiring name base. In accordance with the report, this renewal rate for .com and .net domains remained close to 73 percent during the 4th quarter of 2012, while it stayed at 72.5 percent at the end of the 3rd quarter. Thus, we may observe a slight jump in the renewal rates over the last quarter. During the same 4th quarter, VeriSign also informed about its average daily query load on the domain name system (DNS). Across all TLDs it operates, this load was 77 billion, while reaching a peak of 123 billion during the quarter. Now, you would be able to imagine how fast the world is moving to the internet and how quickly would you need to adapt yourself with this ever-changing world!
