Public Interest Registry (PIR)—the not-for-profit operator of the .ORG domain—today released the results of its bi-annual domain name report, “The Dashboard,” detailing the strong growth of .ORG during the first six months of 2012. Specifically, PIR grew .ORG registrations by 7.7 percent in the first half of 2012 compared to the same time period a year ago.

Other highlights from the report include that:

• Domains under management (DUM) increased from 3.9 million in 2006 to 9.9 million by the end of June 2012—a net gain of 305,948 for the first half of the year and an increase of 154 percent over seven years.
• The blended renewal rate, the average renewal rate from the first to the third year, of existing .ORG websites for the first half of 2012 was 75.4 percent.
• PIR applied for six new top-level domains: .NGO, .ONG and four internationalized domains that translate into “organization,” “org” or “structured organization” in Devanagari, Cyrillic and Chinese-simplified scripts.

1H 2012 – The content density analysis above breaks down how .ORG’s actual community remained both vibrant and diverse during the first half of 2012. The percentages represent the number of .ORG pages indexed by leading search engines using keywords for specific subject categories. Registered businesses and philanthropic organizations range from open source developers and healthcare companies to sports associations and cultural foundations.“We have seen tremendous growth of the .ORG domain over the last few years, underscoring the fact that .ORG remains the go-to online home for individuals and companies advancing their cause or mission,” said Brian Cute, CEO of Public Interest Registry. “What’s more is that the year ahead also promises to be an exciting one for PIR. Not only will we remain focused on continuing to expand the .ORG domain globally and in new markets such as India, Russia and China, but we will also be introducing complementary domain options—such as .NGO or .ONG—that will, like .ORG, serve as trusted online venues for nonprofit and nongovernmental communities worldwide.”

As for PIR’s upcoming .NGO domain, “The Dashboard” notes that work is underway to develop a NGO Directory for use by those registering .NGO and .ONG domain names, along with a verification system that will be key to ensuring the Directory and domain names are exclusive to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Finally, “The Dashboard” reemphasizes PIR’s support of preserving the open Internet, enhancing online security and protecting intellectual property rights through bottom-up policy development and through ensuring that Internet Governance decisions are transparent, participatory and made in the best interest of all Internet users.

For more information on “The Dashboard” or to download a copy, click here.