Verisign Reports New High of 362 Million Registered Domains

How many websites do you think there are in the world? Well, they might not all have sites attached to them yet, but we can tell you that there are at least 362.4 million registered domains. Verisign, an entity dedicated to global internet infrastructure, released the new figure as part of its Q2 reporting in July 2024. Discover more about the latest report below.

What Are the Most Popular Domain Name Types?

Domain name totals have increased by 5.8 million since 2023, which marks a 1.6% rise in the number of registrations year on year. It also shows an increase of 4% since Q1 2024. Clearly, there’s no loss of interest in creating an online presence, as can be seen in the ever-increasing volumes of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

Speaking of gTLDs, the .coms and .nets remain top in terms of the number of registrations. However, the total volume registered dropped by 1.1% compared to Q1 and 2.2% year on year. So, while there are still more .coms than any other gTLD with a total of 157.6 registered domains, interest may be waning.

What’s driving this? It could be the increased variety of gTLDs now available, from .radio to .travel. If a startup or entrepreneur wants to build an online presence, it’s now easier than ever to choose a web address that reflects their industry.

ccTLDs Continue to Drive Business

Of course, gTLDs are only one part of the picture. Country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) continue to be big sellers — even with people who don’t come from those countries. There are now 140 million registered ccTLDs, which is up by 0.4 million compared with Q1. There’s a sharper increase when you look at the annual figures — Q2 2024 is 2.2% up year on year from Q2 2023.

The most popular ccTLDs are:

• .de (Germany)
• .uk (United Kingdom)
• .cn (China)
• .nl (Netherlands)
• .ru (Russian Federation)

It might surprise you to learn that people are registering domains in Russia. However, remember that Russia is a massive country and many of these registrations will come from within its borders. Also, organizations with a legitimate interest may benefit from a .ru domain, such as charities and other non-profits.

A ccTLD can represent an inexpensive alternative to a gTLD for some organizations or individuals. However, the primary use of ccTLDs is to establish a more authentic presence within that country. Locals are more likely to trust a website that’s registered in their country rather than one with a more generic domain. It can also be easier to find unique brand and business names in ccTLD domain registries.

Where Do the Figures Come From?

All figures about domain name registration numbers come from the Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) Quarterly Report Q2 2024. DNIB exists solely to provide industry insights about the Domain Name System (DNS). Readers can often find articles by industry leaders and other experts. The whole site is sponsored by Verisign who have been publishing insights via the DNIB site for more than ten years.

Who Is Verisign?

Verisign (sometimes written as VeriSign) is an American firm that provides global internet infrastructure support and domain name registry services. There are 13 root servers for the internet as a whole, and Verisign is in charge of maintaining two of these. Every time you buy a .com or .net domain name, a portion of the price you pay goes to Verisign as fees. These fees go back into maintaining the integrity of the DNS.

As we move further into summer, it would be normal to see a slowdown in domain name registrations as businesses take well-earned vacations. However, that’s not been the trend so far this year. As we already reported, some of the most expensive domain sales of the year took part in the early days of summer. Perhaps the rest of 2024 could continue to buck trends and see continuously climbing domain name sales.

Remember, if you’re in the market for a new domain name, always try and find a trusted domain name registrar, ideally one that offers multiple services. Bookmark this blog for more domain name news.