How many domains are there? (And other stats from Verisign’s domain industry brief)

Verisign, the registry behind .com and .net, has released their September 2016 issue of the Domain Name Industry Brief, and with it, shared some insight about the growth and revenue of domain names across all TLDs.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the most interesting facts and figures shared in the report:

How many total domains are there?

Verisign reported an estimated 334.6 million registrations of domain names across all TLDs at the end of the second quarter of 2016. That’s an increase of 7.9 million domain names over the previous quarter, and a growth of 38.2 million domains year over year.

How many New Domains are there?

There were a reported 22 million registrations of New Domains as of June 30, 2016. In the grand scheme of things, New Domains make up only 6.6% of total current domain registrations. However, it’s important to remember that the first round of New Domains didn’t become available until October 2013, and many are still in the process of being released.

What are the largest TLDs by number of registrations?

Unsurprisingly, .COM is the TLD with the most registrations, with .NET and .ORG ranking 5th and 6th respectively. While ccTLDs make up the majority of the top 10 list (including .TK, .CN, .DE, .UK, .RU, and .NL), the New Domain .XYZ has also managed to break into the top tier of domain names, coming in 8th with over 6.5 million registrations at the time of publication.

Are more people using redirects?

Another nugget of information that was especially interesting was the increased frequency of URL redirects being used to send visitors to third-party sites. Verisign reported that instances of .com and .net domains being redirected to social media or eCommerce sites increased 43% for Amazon, 22% for Etsy, 30% for LinkedIn, and 35% for Twitter.

If you’re interested in learning more about Verisign, or reading the report for yourself, you can do so on Verisign’s website.