Internet Grows with 332.4 Million Domain Name Registrations

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), which is a company which deals with domain names and internet security, today announced that approximately 1.7 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in the fourth quarter of 2017. This brings the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 332.4 million across all top-level domains (TLDs).

Let us give you a fair idea of what a DNS is and how it works. A DNS is a central part of the Internet that provides a way to match names (a website which a user is seeking) to numbers (the address for the website). Any device connected to the Internet including laptops, tablets, smartphones, websites and has an Internet Protocol (IP) address made up of numbers. A user's favorite website might have an IP address like 11.302.198.101which surely is not easy to keep in mind. But a domain name which is something like domainname.com relate to and can remember easily. DNS synchronizes the domain names with IP addresses which are easy to remember for a user. While computers on the Internet can use IP addresses a user can use the DNS.

Following are the Key highlights of VeriSign Inc, which includes:

• New .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 9.0 million during the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to 8.8 million for the fourth quarter in 2016.
• The increase of approximately 1.7 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 0.5 percent over the third quarter of 20171,2.
• Domain name registrations have grown by 3.1 million, or 0.9 percent, year over year 1, 2.
• The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 146.4 million domain name registrations in the domain name base3 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017. This represents a 2.9 percent increase year over year.
• As of Dec. 31, 2017, the .com domain name base totaled 131.9 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base totaled 14.5 million domain name registrations.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry. The first quarter 2017 Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at Verisign.com/DNIB