205 Million Domain Names in January 2011

Do you remember that social media expert that told everyone (or anyone that would listen) that in the future you would not need domain names because social media destinations and mobile apps would eventually be the standard? They were wrong. How wrong nobody really knew (except us - and maybe you - of course) and now we've got proof. 

The Internet added 3.5 million websites (a 1.7 percent increase over the third quarter) during the last three months of 2010 according to Verisign's Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF), bringing the total number of domain name registrations to well over 205 million. 

Some interesting highlights from the report:

- The base of Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) was 80.1 million domain names, a 1.1 percent increase quarter over quarter, and a 0.3 percent increase year over year.

- New .com and .net registrations totaled 7.6 million during the quarter. This is a 1.6 percent increase in new registrations from the third quarter. Year over year, new registrations increased 4 percent.

- VeriSign's (NASDAQ: VRSN) database of ".com" and ".net" domains accounted for 105.2 million registrations, up 4 percent from a year ago.