Internet grows to 276 million domain names in Q1, 2014

BANGALORE, INDIA: VeriSign Inc. today announced five million domain names were added to the Internet in the first quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 276 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief.

The increase of five million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.7 percent over the fourth quarter of 2013. Worldwide registrations have grown by 19.3 million, or 7.5 percent, year over year.

The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth, reaching a combined total of approximately 128.5 million domain names in the adjusted zone in the first quarter of 2014. This represents a 4 percent increase year over year. As of March 31, 2014, the base of registered names in .com equalled 113.2 million names, while .net equalled 15.2 million names.

New .com and .net registrations totalled 8.6 million during the first quarter of 2014. In the first quarter of 2013, new .com and .net registrations totalled 8.8 million.

During the first quarter of 2014, Verisign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 85 billion across all TLDs operated by Verisign, with a peak of 120 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 3.4 percent and the peak increased 20.6 percent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 14.8 percent and the peak query load increased 6 percent.

As more companies bring their businesses online, there is an increased concern over domain name security. This quarter's featured article, "The Domain Threat Landscape: Protecting Critical Infrastructure Requires a Layered Security Approach" provides a brief summary of domain name hijacking and some preventative measures and tools to help ensure your domain name is secure.