Internet Grows to Nearly 220 mn Domain Names in Third Quarter

The increase of 4.9 million domain names equates to a growth rate of 2.3 percent over the second
quarter of 2011, and marks the third straight quarter with greater than 2 percent growth. The Internet
saw the addition of 4.5 million domain names in the first quarter (a 2.2 percent increase) and 5.2
million domain names in the second quarter (a 2.5 percent increase).

The .com and .net Top Level Domains (TLDs) experienced aggregate growth in the third quarter,
reaching a combined total of 112 million names. New .com and .net registrations totaled 7.9 million
during the quarter. This is a 5.9 percent increase year-over-year in new registrations.

The latest issue of the Domain Name Industry Brief focuses on some of the new use categories that
are likely to emerge out of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) plan
to introduce new generic TLDs (gTLDs).

The article examines how the new gTLD process could herald the emergence of a wide range of new uses for gTLDs that could change how Internet users interact with the global addressing system.
These new use categories include gTLDs that represent specific brands, hobbies, geographic
locations, cultural communities, internationalized domain names, industry sectors and specific
Internet-enabled services.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide Internet users throughout the world
with significant statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry and the
Internet as a whole.