September 16, 2016
The latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief has the .AU namespace ranking 9th in world for country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs).
It's not a bad result for what is a comparatively small country - Australia's .AU is one of 292 global ccTLD extensions.
Here's how the top 10 biggest ccTLD's list looks:
The .tk extension ranking in the top slot may be a surprise to some considering Tokelau is a tiny, remote nation with a population of less than 2,000. As we've mentioned in the past, the reason for this is .tk names are free to register. However, they aren't generally considered a great option for Australian businesses - it's still best to register .com.au; which has a high level of awareness and trust.
In total, ccTLD domain name registrations reached around 149.9 million in the second quarter of this year - a 1 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2016 and an 8.5 percent jump year over year. The top 10 ccTLDs made up more than a third (67.3 percent) of all ccTLD registrations.
With regard to all Top Level Domains (TLD's), 7.9 million names were added to the internet in the second quarter of 2016, a growth rate of 2.4 percent over the first quarter and 12.9 percent year over year. The largest TLD remains .com (127.5 million names as at June 30) by a long shot.
As of the end of June, the ten largest TLDs were .com, .tk, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .xyz, .ru and .nl. The .xyz extension is another interesting case; with many reports of the domains being used for spam related activities; possibly as a result of loose eligibility criteria combined with very cheap pricing.
The full Verisign second quarter 2016 Domain Name Industry Brief can be viewed here (PDF).
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