According to Verisign’s zone file the number of .Com domain name registrations have topped 115 million, an all time high.
As we have written the new gTLD program does not seem to be effecting the number of .Com registrations.
Back just 7 weeks ago on September 19, we posted that the number of .com registrations had crossed the 114.6 million domain mark.
Today in crossing the 115 million mark, .com added over 600,000 domain name registrations in just 7 weeks.
As of March 31, 2014 Verisign reported there were 113.2 million registered .com domains.
So .com has added 1.8 million domain names during the time the new gTLD program rolled out.
As of today according to ntldstats.com there are 3,116,119 new gTLD domain names registered, but probably less than 2 Million are paid for registrations by third parties, backing out all of the free domain names, domain name registered or reserved by the registries or people affiliated to the registries.
All of this means that .com is growing at about the same rate as all paid registrations of the new gTLD’s combined since March 31.
It actually crossed the 115 million registration mark a couple of weeks ago. You need to *add* the active zone (domain names that are in the zone file) and the “not configured” domains (i.e. domains with no name servers) together, to come up with the total number of registrations. As of today, that sum is 115,002,622 + 251,812 = 115,254,434.
Perhaps one day VeriSign will “do the math” on their website to add up these numbers, to make things easier for stats trackers. 🙂
George I’m just trying to be consistent in the reporting and I always use just the active domain number
I know, however it’s been consistently inaccurate. To be accurate, saying “.com zone file tops 115 million” would be correct. But, the total number of registrations is higher, and has been for a long time.
If I go to my registrar and delete the nameservers for 10 of my dot-com domains, the active zone will drop by 10, but the total number of domain name registrations will not change. There’s always a fraction of fraction of registered names that have no nameservers — VeriSign gives us the accurate numbers, so they should be used, if one wants to be precise.
[It’s laziness on the part of VeriSign’s programmers that causes this confusion. If they simply added the two numbers together on their website,it would make everyone’s job easier.]
George
I think the take away from the story is that .com has added as many paid registrations as the new G’s have done overall
Most impressive. 🙂
Also George you should note that registrarstats.com which actually charges $500 a month to users (as opposed to thedomains.com which gives the information for free) also only uses the active number to report registrations not the total number as you suggest
The zone file information which RegistrarStats produces is actually free (see the bottom right of their home page). It’s the other stuff that they’re charging for, to use that service.
George but you agree that even registrarstats.com only count the active domains in their totals not as you suggest the combined number as you suggested should be used
Yes, they’re not accurately reporting the total registrations either, because their automated system isn’t parsing the “not configured” domains (which I believe is only published on VeriSign’s website, and presumably not published via FTP or whatever system RegistrarStats uses to obtain the zone file).
So everyone but you George is reporting it based on active domain and we will continue to report based on active domains