August 19, 2012
The Public Interest Registry (PIR) recently released its bi-annual domain name report, which states the ORG extension remains the world's third largest non-country specific TLD; behind .COM and .NET.
Covering the period January to June 2012, .ORG domain registrations passed the 9.9 million mark and were predicted to reach 10 million by last month.
Domains under management (DUM) increased to 9.9 million by the end the period, a net gain of 305,948 for the first half of this year. ORG experienced a boost of 3.2 percent in the first half of 2012, compared to 5.2 percent in the second half of last year.
The blended rate of renewal rate (up to 3 years) was 75.4 percent in the first half of 2012, while the renewal rate for three-plus years was 82 percent.
Over 85% of all registered ORG names are associated with an active site - however, "active" can also mean parked pages.
Far from being a US-centric domain; ORG names are registered by people from all over the world. North America remains the largest market for the extension at 64%, followed by the European Union; Asia, Australia (3%) and the Pacific; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Africa.
While originally designated for non-profits, there are no longer such restrictions on registering a .ORG domain name.
"With 85 percent active domain names and 75 percent renewal rates, ORG is poised for strong and sustainable future growth, especially at a time where it is faced with the influx of new top-level domain names coming on market in 2013," sates the report.
The report points out when ICANN revealed 1,930 new top-level domain applications, six were from PIR.
Public Interest Registry (PIR) is the operator of the .ORG registry. The latest "The Dashboard" report can be viewed in full here (PDF)
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