Domain name registrations on the rise

Registrations of domain names increased by 16 per cent to 177 million in 2008, new research from VeriSign has revealed.

The report showed that domain name registrations relating to top-level domains (TLDs) rose by 24 million compared with 2007.

VeriSign noted that the fourth quarter of 2008 saw more than ten million registrations alone, with the most popular domain names overall consisting of those with the .com, .cn, .de, .net and .org suffixes.

The company also said that it is now working on the introduction of new internationalised TLDs that include local language non-Latin characters, such as those in Japanese.

Jill McNabb, vice-president of naming services at VeriSign, explained: "The potential for internationalised TLDs to enable a universally accessible internet is promising. But it must be done right."

There were nearly 185.5 million sites on the internet in January, down 1.23 million compared with December, according to recent figures from Netcraft.

Written by Debra Hastings-Henry