RESTON, VA - According to the latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report from DNIB.com, the fourth quarter of 2024 concluded with 364.3 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs). This represents an increase of 2.0 million registrations, or 0.5%, compared to the third quarter of 2024, and a year-over-year growth of 4.4 million registrations, or 1.2%. The combined total of .com and .net TLDs reached 169.0 million domain name … [Read more...]
Annual Number of Domain Name Registrations Remains Flat at End of 2024
LOS ANGELES, CA - According to end-of-the-year roundups, the number of domain name registrations that took place during the course of 2024 remained essentially flat when compared to the year prior, indicating that growth within the industry has stagnated to a degree following the increased demand brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 362.3 million domain names registered at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 according to the most recent Domain Name … [Read more...]
Namecheap Publishes Results Naming Highest TLD, Domain Registrations for 2024
PHOENIX, AZ - One of the most well-known domain registrars in the world, Namecheap, has released the results of a study outlining the highest number of domains registered through its service in the Top-Level Domain (TLD) as well as National Domain categories for the year 2024. Namecheap’s report notes that the most popular TLD registered with the company in 2024, unsurprisingly, was .COM, which took a commanding lead with 3,661,899 registrations. The number two slot ended … [Read more...]
Scammers & Cybercriminals Using Cheap New Domains To Host Fake Websites
BOSTON, MA - A new report is pointing to new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) launched within the past few years, such as .Top, and .Shop as contributing to an increase in use by scammers and cybercriminals due to the fact that – given their relatively new status on the market – they are cheaper to register compared to more established domains. According to Interisle Consulting Group’s newly-published Cybercrime Supply Chain 2024 report, 16 million cybercrime events … [Read more...]
New 2024 Global Domain Report Notes “Game Changing” Industry Insights for “.AI”
CAMBRIDGE, MA - InterNetX and Sedo Have released their 2024 Global Domain Report, which breaks down the domain industry and examines trends and shifts that are expected in the upcoming year, with the main emphasis being placed upon tech developments and the evolution of AI and its growing influence upon the internet. The free-to-download 80-page report – of which this article will provide a brief summary – noted that 359.8 million new domains were registered in 2023, … [Read more...]
VeriSign Says “.COM” Registrations Up, “NGTLDS” Up, Legacy “.NET” Down
RESTON, VA - VeriSign Inc., a global provider of domain name registry services and internet infrastructure, announced that their total number of Top-Level Domain (TLD) registrations worldwide have reached 356.6 million as of the end of the second quarter of 2023, as per the company’s latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). Verisign, based out of Reston, Virginia, operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen … [Read more...]
Prices of .Com Domain Name Registrations, Renewals Set to Increase in September
RESTON, VA - Verisign Inc., the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc country-code top-level domains, recently announced that August is the last month to register or renew your .com domain name and save some money before prices are increased this upcoming September. Once September 1 hits, Verisign stated they will increase the wholesale price of annual .com registration and renewals from $8.97 to $9.59, an … [Read more...]
Website Company Squarespace Enters Agreement to Purchase Google Domains
NEW YORK, NY - New York City-based website building and hosting company Squarespace announced this week that they will be entering into an agreement to purchase Google Domains – a domain name registrar operated by Google that offers domain registration, DNS hosting, dynamic DNS, domain forwarding, and email forwarding – in a deal that includes all of the company's assets, which includes approximately 10 million domains that are owned by millions of … [Read more...]
Hundreds of Domains Being Reported in Scam for Free Federal COVID-19 Test Kits
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The federal government launched a new website in January to help distribute free at-home COVID-19 test kits to U.S. citizens; no sooner did this website go live, so did numerous copycat websites, none of which were legitimate, but many sporting very similar URLs in an attempt to run a scam on unsuspecting visitors. In mid-January, the Biden Administration announced a free COVID-19 test kit program, with the kits being distributed via the U.S. Postal … [Read more...]
Lights Out for Nearly 50,000 Websites As Brexit Results in “.EU” Domain Change
GREAT BRITAIN - As a potentially unexpected side-effect of Brexit – the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union in January 2020 – approximately 48,000 websites with the domain name “.eu” are now effectively in limbo, having been taken offline on Monday since the UK citizens and organizations who own them are no longer allowed to hold those domains. The revocation of those .eu domain names by the agency in charge of registrations on Monday was the … [Read more...]
NYT: “Dot-org Symbolizes Neither Quality Nor Trust; False Association with Credibility”
PALM BEACH, NY - Wow, the New York Times has taken a firm and unique approach to the news and industry buzz surrounding the sale of the .ORG registry to private equity firm, Ethos Capital. Bash the domain in a hitpiece to level the playing-field in what it calls the domains' opportunity to be used by a host of bad actors, all whom reap the benefits of dot-org’s "false association with credibility." In an opinion piece published yesterday by Sam Wineburg and Nadav Ziv, an … [Read more...]
With Price Caps Removed, Dot Org Domain Name Registry Acquired by Ethos Capital
PALM BEACH, FL – In a move that surprises few industry experts, Public Interest Registry (PIR), the Reston, Virginia-based not-for-profit created by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage the “.org” top-level domain name has been acquired by private equity management firm Ethos Capital. The acquisition comes shortly after ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, permitted the removal of price caps on “.org” domain name registrations on June 30, … [Read more...]
Numbers Reported for “.CLUB” Decline Due to Registry Quality Compliance & Cleanup
PALM BEACH, FL – The following is a correction to previously published work which included an embedded Tweet which has been called into question and said, by the registry, to be incorrect; a reader from the “.Club” registry contacted me with a correction request yesterday including some supporting explanations for certain numbers seen on nTLDStats.com and numbers from a Tweet which were embedded and published on StrategicRevenue.com on October 17, 2019. Upon reading the … [Read more...]
Lawyer Says Domain Name Investors Are “Hijacking and Ransoming Domains”
PALM BEACH, FL – This is an interesting topic by itself, although I covered something very much like it just the other day in "Panels Consistently Find That 'Domain Investing' Is Legitimate Bona Fide Offering". A lawyer named Tamara Kurtzman wrote an article that appeared on the website of the American Bar Association which details her opinion that “Domain Name Investing” should really be considered “Domain Name Hoarding” and labeled as “Anticipatory … [Read more...]
VeriSign Quarterly Reports Indicate Legacy “.net” and “.org” Future Not So Wonderful
PALM BEACH, FL – Each quarter, VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN), releases its “THE DOMAIN NAME INDUSTRY BRIEF” market report, highlighting the growth of the domain name system as well as the individual growth of name registration, in numbers, for various extensions including their own “.com”, and “.net” domain names. These reports also include other legacy extensions such as Public Interest Registry's “.org” and leading country-code “ccTLDs.” Not surprisingly, ccTLDs continue to grow … [Read more...]