VeriSign Inc., a global leader in domain names and Internet security, today said five million domain names were added to the Internet in the first quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 276 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief.
The increase of five million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.7% over the fourth quarter of 2013. Worldwide registrations have grown by 19.3 million, or 7.5% year over year.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth, reaching a combined total of approximately 128.5 million domain names in the adjusted zone in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a 4% increase year over year. As of March 31, 2014, the base of registered names in .com equalled 113.2 million names, while .net equalled 15.2 million names.
New .com and .net registrations reached 8.6 million during the first quarter of 2014. In the first quarter of 2013, new .com and .net registrations were 8.8 million.
During the first quarter of 2014, Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 85 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 120 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 3.4% and the peak increased 20.6%. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 14.8% and the peak query load increased 6%.
As more companies bring their businesses online, there is an increased concern over domain name security. This quarter’s featured article, “The Domain Threat Landscape: Protecting Critical Infrastructure Requires a Layered Security Approach” provides a brief summary of domain name hijacking and some preventative measures and tools to help ensure your domain name is secure.
Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry.