Internet grows to more than 240 million domain names

More than seven million domain names were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of registered domain names at June 30, 2012, to more than 240 million worldwide across all domains, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc.

The increase of 7.3 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 3.1 percent over the first quarter of 2012, and marks the sixth straight quarter with greater than two percent growth. Worldwide registrations have grown by 25.5 million, or 11.9 percent, since the second quarter of 2011.

The .com and .net Top-Level Domains (TLDs) experienced aggregate growth in the second quarter of 2012, reaching a combined total of approximately 118.5 million domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net. This represents a 1.6 percent increase in the base over the first quarter of 2012 and a 7.8 percent increase over the second quarter of 2011. At June 30, 2012, the base of registered names in .com equaled 103.7 million names, while .net equaled 14.8 million names.

New .com and .net registrations totaled 8.4 million during the second quarter of 2012. This is a 4.2 percent year-over-year increase in new registrations. The .com/.net renewal rate for the second quarter of 2012 was 72.9 percent, down from 73.9 percent for the first quarter of 2012.

Verisign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load during the second quarter of 2012 was 68 billion, with a peak of 90 billion. Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 1.9 percent and the peak increased 21 percent.