The increase of approximately 2.3 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 1.8 percent over the third quarter of 2016. Domain name registrations have grown by 21 million, or 6.8 percent, year over year.
VeriSign has announced that approximately 2.3 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in the fourth quarter of 2016, bringing the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 329.3 million across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of December 31, 2016.1,2 This data is shared in the online version of the Domain Name Industry Brief that launched today.
The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 142.2 million domain name registrations in the domain name base3 in the fourth quarter of 2016. This represents a 1.7 percent increase year over year. As of December 31, 2016, the .com domain name base equaled 126.9 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base equaled 15.3 million domain name registrations.
New .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 8.8 million during the fourth quarter of 2016. In the fourth quarter of 2015, new .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 12.2 million.
During the fourth quarter of 2016, Verisign’s average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was approximately 143 billion queries per day across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of nearly 398 billion queries. Quarter over quarter, the daily average query load increased 11.4 percent and the peak increased by 122.5 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased by 16.0 percent, and the peak increased 105.1 percent.
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. The third quarter 2016 Domain Name Industry Brief is also now available in the archives section of Verisign.com.
