New VeriSign Reports Detail Growth in Domains, Pay Per Click Advertising
The latest Domain Name Industry Brief reports that total domain name registrations reached 128 million, representing a 31 percent increase over the same quarter in the previous year, and a 6 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2006.
New domain name registrations reached 10.7 million during the first quarter of 2007, a signal that strong growth continues for the domain name industry. ccTLDs increased 33 percent year-over-year to 45.7 million, and 5 percent from the previous quarter. Though the approximately 2 million new ccTLD registrations totaled just roughly half of the record-breaking ccTLDs added last quarter, the number reflects an 86 percent increase from ccTLD registrations year-over-year.
VeriSign processed approximately 7 million new registrations for .COM and .NET domain names in the first quarter of 2007. This represented a 13 percent increase over the fourth quarter 2006 and a 13 percent increase over the first quarter 2006. At the close of the first quarter, VeriSign counted 69 million .COM and .NET domain name registrations in the base. This represents a 6 percent increase in the first quarter 2007 compared to the fourth quarter 2006, and a 28 percent increase year-over-year.
The second report is a new one that shows the importance of domain parking, the VeriSign Domain Name and Pay Per Click Advertising Report. The report defines two types of PPC domains. The first are "PPC-repurposed" sites, a term to describe temporary parking pages that registrars show when a domain is registered by a customer but not in use yet. Second are "PPC-intent" domain names, which were registered with the intent of monetizing through parked pages. The report discusses the various ways people find and register these domains, including the five-day grace period and add/drop process.
