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Domain name registry Verisign processed 9.6 million .com and .net domain names in the first three months of 2018, slightly more than the number processed during the same period in 2017 (9.5 million).
Verisign, which operates two of the internet’s top-level domains (TLDs)—.com and .net—shared the news within its business report on the first quarter of 2018, on Thursday, April 26.
By the end of 2017, Verisign had 146.4 million .com and .net domain name registrations in its domain name base.
The company said it ended the first quarter of 2018 with a total of 148.3 million .com and .net registrations in its domain name base.
Renewal rates for the first quarter of 2018 are not yet available, but during the final quarter of 2017 Verisign said it renewed 72.2% of .com and .net domain names compared to 67.6% the previous year. The company estimates that the figure for the first quarter of 2018 will reach 74.9%.
The top keywords registered in the .com and .net TLDs included ‘president’, ‘passion’, ‘general’, and ‘tampa’ in March. Verisign said there is generally a correlation between domain name registrations and newsworthy events.
‘Hello’, ‘fan’, ‘house’, and ‘mark’ were top keywords in February and ‘near’, ‘cell’, ‘association’, and ‘therapy’ were popular words in January.
In February Verisign released the latest issue of its “Domain Name Industry Brief”, which reviews the state of the domain name industry.
According to the brief, domain name registrations across TLDs hit 332.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, which equates to an increase of 1.7 million domain name registrations from the third quarter.
The year-on-year increase of all TLD registrations was just 0.9%, Verisign said, but the .com and .net TLDs increased by 2.9% compared to the year before.
Verisign, .com, .net, web hosting, top level domain, internet hosts, domain name registrations, domain name renewals
