ZebraDomain.com

In the past 6 or so years the global domain name market has more than tripled in size, from around 50 million registered domains by the end of 2002 to over 177 million in late 2008. Howevr the crisis affecting .

While .com was, is and probably will stay for years to come the dominant TLD (with about 50% of the total domain market in late 2008), other TLDs (both local TLDs and generic) have become increasingly more common.

When we look at the numbers we can see the global economic crisis reflected in the domain market. If in 2007 the total number of .com grew from about 58 million to over 70 million (an increase of about 12 million), in 2008 the total number of .com domains grew from 71 million to 78 million (about 7 million). 2009 so far seems even bleaker with a total of just over 80 million in the beginning of May (a total increase of only 1.5 million).

Other gTLDs such as .net and .org also slewed down their growth during 2008 and 2009. When we look at .mobi (the mobile gTLD) we see an even grimmer picture. The .mobi gTLD grew from about 450,000 total domains in April 2007 to a maximum of over 950,000 in October 2008. However since than the total number of domains actually decreased to about 830,000 in May 2009.

When it comes to ccTLDs .cn (China) is defiantly the hottest name to look for. During 2007 the total number of .cn domains (including .com.cn, .net.cn, .edu.cn etc.) grew from a about 1.8 million to an unbelievable 9 million. In 2008 .cn continued to grow but in a slower rate (from about 10 million to 13.5 million domains). However 2009 seem to hit the .cn pretty hard with an actual decrease in the total number of .cn domains (from a maximum of just over 14 million in February to 13.5 million in April).

So what can we learn from all of this? The sad and rather unsurprising truth is that the domain market was hit by the economic crisis. The more shocking news is how deep the domain market was affected. The drop in .mobi domains might not be a surprise (many experts have been asking whether this TLD is doomed) but the drop in the .cn is unprecedented and even it could be explained as a result of several factors it is clear that the status of the world economy had much to do with it. If the economic situation will not improve in the next few months we might actually see a drop in the total number of .com domains.

One last point. When looking at the internet as a whole (not just domain names but actual new websites) things look pretty much the same with a 50% drop in the number of new websites.

Some good general internet statistics could be found on hosterstats. .cn specific statistics can be found here. We shall keep tracking this topic for changes over the next months.

Domain Name Dictionary

Country code top-level domain (ccTLD) – is a two letters long Internet top-level domain extensions reserved for a country (such as .uk, .us, .ge).

Domain aftermarket – see Domaining.

Domain appraisal – is an estimate on the potential price of a specific domain name. Domain appraisals are usually rough estimates which chage according to market demand, the domain name specific extension (TLD), the length of the domain name and various other factors.

Domain hijacking – happens when internet domain names are stolen from their rightful owners using deception or fraud. This could happen in any number of ways including identity theft (via impersonation or other methods).

Domain broker -a company or an individual who can help sell or buy a domain names.

Domain parking – a service which allows domain owners to make use of their domain to make money (from advertising etc.) while they wait to sell the domain or develop it into a website.

Domain name generator – a service or software which help users locate potential domain names.

Domain name registrar – a company licensed to register Internet domain names.

Domaining – the business of monetizing Internet domain names by buying, selling and developing them strictly for profit with the intent of resale. In this respect domainers are a lot like the internet version of real estate agents or second hand car dealers.

Domain name – a name which identifies one or more IP addresses (for example zebradomain.com is a domain name which represent one specific IP address, Google.com represent several IP addresses).

generic top-level domain (gTLD) – one kind of Top-Level Domains (TLDs). gTLDs include (among others) the following extensions: .com, .info, .net, .biz, .name, and .pro (see the gTLD full list here).

Geodomain – a term used to denote a domain name for a city or country (for example: newyork.com, lasvegas.net or hawii.com).

Internationalized domain name (IDN) – contains non-ASCII characters required by many non-English languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew and Hindi.

Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) – the standard chosen to allow the use of non-ASCII characters in domain names.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – a non-profit corporation created in order to oversee Internet-related tasks such as IP address space allocation and managing the assignment of domain names.

IP Addresses – a logical (numerical) address assigned to devices in a computer network (for example 208.77.188.166). Websites also have IP addresses which could be used in the address bar of a browser to reach a specific website (for example http://74.125.45.100/).

Premium domain - is typically a more valuable domain name with unique characteristics (short, memorable and easy to spell) in many cases premium domains might also contain words that are regularly searched or are of significance to a specific sector.

Reverse domain hijacking – the practice of acquiring domain names from their owners by wrongfully accusing them of violating trademarks with the domain name.

Second-level domain (SLD) – is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in the .uk (United Kingdom) and .il (Israel) academic institutions would register under the ccSLD (Country code Second-level domain) .ac.uk or ac.il, while companies would register under .co.uk or co.il.

Sub-domain – is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example support.microsoft.com is a sub-domain of the Microsoft.com domain.

Top-Level Domain (TLD) – the group of letters that follow the final dot of a domain name. Domain names include generic top-level domains (gTLDs such as .com, .net etc.) and country code top-level domain (ccTLD such as .de, .uk., .us etc.).

Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) – is a process established for the resolution of disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) - typically refers to as a Web address (such as http://zebradomain.com/).

Web hosting - is a service provided by companies which includes storage space on a server as well as Internet connectivity, typically located in a data center.

WHOIS – a method for retrieving details on the owner of a domain name (including name, contact details, domain purchase date and renewals date), more info here.

Here is the list of Internet Top-level domains (TLDs) based on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)

(*) – could be registered using an Asian based agent

country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)