Internet Grows to 326.4 Million Domain Names in the First Quarter of 2016

Today, we released the latest issue of the Domain Name Industry Brief, which showed that the internet grew by approximately 12 million domain names in the first quarter of 2016, and closed with a base of 326.4 million domain names across all top-level domains (TLDs). This is a 3.8 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2015. [1]

.COM AND .NET BREAKDOWN

The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth, reaching a combined total of approximately 142.5 million domain names in the domain name base in the first quarter of 2016. [2] In the first quarter of 2016, Verisign processed 10 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.7 million domain names for the same period in 2015.

TLD BREAKDOWN

In the first quarter of 2016, the top 10 TLDs in order by zone size were:

CCTLD BREAKDOWN

Country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) reached 148.2 million domain names at the end of Q1 2016, with an increase of 3.8 million domain names, or a 2.6 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. As of March 31, 2016, the top 10 ccTLDs by zone size were:

NEW GTLD BREAKDOWN

At the end of Q1 2016, new gTLD (ngTLDs) registrations totaled 16.1 million, which represents 4.9 percent of total domain name registrations. The top 10 ngTLDs represented 54.8 percent of all ngTLD domain name registrations. The following charts show ngTLD domain name registrations as a percentage of overall TLD domain name registrations, and also the top 10 ngTLDs as a percentage of all ngTLD domain name registrations for the first quarter of 2016.

DNS QUERY LOAD

Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the first quarter of 2016 was 124 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 189 billion. Quarter over quarter, the daily average increased 0.5 percent and the peak decreased by 2.7 percent. Year over year, the daily average increased 3.5 percent and the peak increased 14.2 percent.

For more domain stats from the first quarter of 2016, check out the Q1 2016 infographic below and the latest issue of the Domain Name Industry Brief.

1. The generic top-level domain (gTLD) and ccTLD data cited in the DNIB report are estimates as of the time the report was developed, and is subject to change as more complete data is received. Total includes ccTLD Internationalized Domain Names.
2. The domain name base is the active zone plus the number of domain names that are registered but not configured for use in the respective top-level domain zone file plus the number of domain names that are in a client or server hold status.