CircleID

Nearly five million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of registered domain names to nearly 220 million worldwide across all domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc.

According to the report, the increase of 4.9 million domain names results in a 2.3 percent growth rate over the second quarter of 2011, and marks the third straight quarter with greater than 2 percent growth. The overall growth so far for 2011 has been 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 report also focuses on ICANN's plan for the introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) and the understanding of various categories, as well as their possible impact. These gTLD categories are recognized as: .Brand, .Community, .Geo, .IDN, .Industry, .Travel, .Interest, and .Service.

Related topics: DNS, Domain Names, Top-Level Domains