The global base of Internet domain names grew by nearly 3.8 million in the third quarter of 2010, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign Inc., provider of internet infrastructure services.
The third quarter of 2010 closed with a base of almost 202 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), or a 2 per cent increase over the second quarter.
Registrations have grown by 13.3 million, or 7 per cent year-over-year, the company said in a press statement.
The combined base of .com and .net domain names surpassed 103 million. New .com and .net registrations totaled 7.5 million during the third quarter, an increase of 7 per cent from a year ago.
The .com/.net renewal rate for the third quarter was 72.8 per cent, down from 73.2 per cent for the second quarter. The base of Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) was 79.2 million domain names, a 2.4 per cent increase from a year ago.
VeriSign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during third quarter 2010 was 66 billion per day, with a peak of 78 billion. Compared to the same timeframe in 2009, the daily query average increased 23 per cent and the peak grew by 27 per cent.