Domain Name Registration Slows Down

The tumbling economy hadn't initially stopped people and businesses from snatching up an increasing number of domain names. But it looks like the downturn has finally caught up with this market as well, as, despite the fact that domain registrations are at an all-time high, the growth rate may be slowing down especially because of the drop in new domain registrations. Still, there are now 184 million registered domain names worldwide, a 9 percent increase over the same period last year.

"The overall base of domain names grew by 9 percent year-over-year and 1 percent quarter-over-quarter," Jill McNabb, VP of naming services at VeriSign, told InternetNews. "While the number of new registrations declined, there were new registrations coming in, thus resulting in the growth of the overall base."

More than half of the 184 million domains registered globally, 93.5 million are using the .com and .net top-level domains (TLDs). These TLDs saw a 7 percent increase since last year's second quarter. Most of the other domain names, 74.4 million, are Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs) which also saw a 7 percent yearly growth. "In the second quarter 2009, the impact of seasonality as well as the overall weak economic conditions impacted the number of new registrations for both gTLD and ccTLD registrations, though the ccTLD decline was much larger," McNabb added.

According to data from VeriSign, about 9 million new domain names were registered in the second quarter of 2009, a 15 percent drop from the same period last year. These new numbers come after the first quarter saw more registrations, 11.8 million, than previously anticipated. The drop in the second quarter is attributed to a seasonal decline as well as the deteriorating economic conditions. However, the numbers are expected to pick up at some point. "As the macro global economy turns around, domain name registration should see continued growth in the future," McNabb said.