February 26, 2018
The most recent Versign Domain Name Industry Brief reports the .au namespace is still hanging in as a top ten country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD).
The top 10 ccTLDs as of Dec. 31, 2017 in terms of names actively under management:
The top 10 ccTLDs comprised 65.5 percent of all ccTLD domain name registrations (there are more than 300 ccTLDs). Total country-code TLD registrations reached approximately 146.1 million by the end of last year, a 2.4 percent increase year over year.
Looking at the bigger picture, the end of 2017 saw approximately 332.4 million registration across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of approximately 3.1 million, or 0.9 percent, year over year.
The .com extension continues to rule the roost, with .com addresses reaching 131.9 million registrations at the end of the 4th quarter; outpacing the nearest competitor, .cn, by more than 110 million.
As for new generic TLD (ngTLD) domain name registrations, they reached approximately 20.6 million or 6.2 percent of total domain name registrations across all TLDs by December 31 last year. The most popular extensions among these were .loan and .xyz; with the latter seeming to be a particular favourite among spammers and those hoping to capitalise on Google parent company Alphabet using the extension.
Additions to the ngTLD namespace seem to have bred like rabbits, with approximately 1,229 delegated so far. Another 57 are currently proceeding through ICANN's new gTLD Program.
With regard to geographical ngTLDs delegated, there are 39 of those with more than 1,000 domains registered, representing nearly 665,500 registrations - just a small fraction of the number of ccTLDs.
The full Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief for Q4 2017 can be viewed here (PDF).
* Just to provide updated numbers, according to auDA, the number of .au domains registered as at February 26 was 3,151,067.
Have a web site or blog? Get our free domain news widget.
How to register a name: Enter your choice in the search tool and click 'GO'. If after the check the domain names search results show your choice is available, you will then have the option to proceed to purchase registration; which is a very quick and easy process - start a search and find your ideal website address now.
AUSTRALIAN OWNED AND OPERATED SINCE 1996
1300 863 436