51+ Comprehensive TLD Statistics – New Domains & Trends in 2023 - Webtribunal (original) (raw)

TLD, or top-level domain, simply refers to the letters at the end of the domain.

It is something simple, that can nevertheless make or break your internet presence. A TLD can do one of two things – spell out your website’s purpose or (as is the case with .com) – simply inspire trust. HostingTribunal shows the purpose of the site quite clearly – we judge hosting providers.

Have you ever wondered how many .coms are there or what country-code top-level domain is the most popular?

Don’t worry, I’ve got ya.

Let’s start with a few TLD statistics to show you that there’s so much more behind those letters.

Sumptuous TLD Statistics (Editor’s Choice):

• There are currently 26.3 million generic TLD (gTLD) domains.
• 52.3% of all globally registered TLDs are .com and the number is growing.
• The country with the highest number of registered domains is China.
• In 2012, ICANN classified 1,232 new TLDs.
• More than 23 million domain names have been registered under the newly-released generic TLDs since 2013.
• The top new generic TLD is .xyz.
• .gdn is the domain extension that is abused the most.

If those blew your mind, wait till you see the other TLD stats I have prepared for you. If not, then by the end of this article, your mind will get there.

TLD Usage and Growth in 2022

• Around 348.7 million domain names were registered across all top-level domains in Q4 of 2018. That’s a 1.8% increase since Q3. (Source: Verisign)

TLDs Usage

• In 2012, ICANN approved 1,232 new TLDs.(Source: OnlineDomain)
• In January of 2020, the number of TLDs reached 1,253. A relatively small increase but given that for decades we had a handful of TLDs, any increase is worth mentioning. (Source: DomainNameStats)
• The top 4 gTLDs are .com, .ru, .org, .net. (Source: Domain)
• As of September 2021, 52.3% of all globally registered domains used the .com TLD. (Source: Statista)
• 4.8% of all registered domains use the .org TLD. (Source: Statista)
• The most popular new gTLD is .xyz_(Source: CircleID)_

New TLDs Usage

• As of January 2022, there are 28.2 million new generic TLD domains. (Source: nTLDstats)
• .xyz has 3,616,787 total domains. (Source: namestat)
• .cloud is the fastest-growing new gTLD. (Source: namestat)
• .xyz is the biggest selling new gTLD. (Source: namestat)

ccTLD Usage

• As of the end of Q3 in 2021, country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain names were around 152.9 million. This is a 3% decrease since Q3. (Source: Verisign)
• ccTLD count grew 5.6% between 2017 and 2018. (Source: Verisign)
• The largest ccTLD is .tk (Tokelau) with 24.7 million domains. It is the second-largest TLD, only behind .com.(Source: Verisign)
• There are 302 global ccTLD extensions, as of December 2018. (Source: Verisign)

Those TLD statistics show us there is a stable growth in domain registrations. With the internet becoming more and more like a world of its own, this makes perfect sense.

Also expectedly, .com continues to dominate the list of most popular TLDs. It is the gold standard among domain names – pure and simple.

The top new gTLD is the .xyz domain. When it comes to ccTLDs, we observe a steady yearly growth.

It’s clear that dot-com is the most popular TLD ever. Who comes second, though?

Generic TLD

• Unsurprisingly, .com has a market share of 73.34%. (Source: DomainState)
• Dot-net follows second and has a market share of 6.11%. (Source: DomainState)
• Dot-org is third, with a market share of 4.87%. (Source: DomainState)

Newly-released Generic TLD

• Dot-top held the highest market share among the new gTLDs according to stats – 1.74%. (Source: DomainState)
• However, .icu marked a very rapid growth in 2019 and surpassed it, assuming 2.44% market share. (Source: DomainState)
• Dot-vip comes third among the new TLDs, with a 0.69% market share.(Source: DomainState)
• .online is following closely behind, with market shares of 0.65%. (Source: DomainState)

Country-code TLDs

• Tokelau’s .tk TLD holds 24.9% of the market share. (Source: Statista)
• The Chinese.cn possesses the second biggest market share of ccTLDs – 24.4%. (Source: Statista)
• Finally, .de (Germany’s TLD) has a market share of 22.7%, and it rounds up the top 3 ccTLDs. (Source: Statista)

Among the most popular top-level domains, .com, .top, and .tk have the biggest market shares for gTLDs, new gTLDs, and ccTLDs respectively. The .top TLD usage stats are probably the most surprising out of the three.

Top Domain Name Registrars

There are some big fish in the domain registration game. Real big fish. If you want to see who among them is actually good, our analysis of the best domain registrars might come in handy.

GoDaddy

• As of the time of writing, GoDaddy has 58,695,190 domains registered. (Source: DomainState)
• GoDaddy’s market share is approximately 16%. That’s only as far as domain registrations are concerned because the company is the biggest website host too. (Source: WinningWP)

Tucows

• The Canadian Tucows has 9,658,848 registered as of the time of writing. (Source: DomainState)
• It has a 5.36% of market share. (Source: WebHosting)

HiChina

• HiChina had registered 7,312,153 as of Q2 of 2019. (Source: DomainState)

Namecheap

• Namecheap has 7,120,365 registered domains. (Source: DomainState)
• It has a 2.98% of market share and also doubles up as a website host. (Source: WebHosting)

Network Solutions

• There are 6,957,397 domains registered with Network Solutions. (Source: DomainState)

eNom

• eNom has 5,859,517 under its belt. (Source: DomainState)
• eNom’s market share is of 3.6% overall. (Source: WinningWP)

1&1 INTERNET

• The German 1&1 INTERNET has registered 4,904,509 domains. (Source: DomainState)
• It has a market share of 1.6%. (Source: WinningWP)

PublicDomainRegistry

• PublicDomainRegistry has registered 4,295,148 domains. (Source: DomainState)

GMO Internet

• The Japanese GMO Internet has 3,643,771 under its belt. (Source: DomainState)

XinNet

• The Chinese XinNet has registered 3,641,412 domains. (Source: DomainState)

The quick and dirty conclusion from these TLD statistics is that American, Canadian, and Chinese registrars dominate the market. TLD registrar ratings show GoDaddy has been in the lead for quite a while and has zero intention of letting anyone else take the throne.

TLDs Usage by Country

• China has 5,861,173 registered new gTLDs, which makes for 20.8.% globally, 526 TLDs, and 24 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
• 1,888,888 of the domains are registered with HiChina. (Source: nTLDStats)
• 3,688,220 new gTLDs have been registered in the USA, which is 14.04% worldwide, 861 TLDs, and 254 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
• 30.38% of domains are registered with GoDaddy. (Source: nTLDStats)
• The third place is for domains with hidden WhoIs info, with 2,191,441 domains and 8.34% of the global share, with 487 TLDs and 165 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
• 670,250 of the domains are registered with NameCheap. (Source: nTLDStats)
• Panama comes fourth, with 2,130,392 domains, 389 TLDs, and 107 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
• NameCheap is the registrar of choice for Panama, with 2,065,274 domains. (Source: nTLDStats)
• 6.02% of global domains are registered in Japan – with 524 TLDs and 128 active registrars. (Source: nTLDStats)
• GMO Internet dominates Japan with 1,433,864 domains. (Source: nTLDStats)

China has the top TLD usage – that was kind of expected. USA coming second was also quite predictable. The third entry in the list is, however, shrouded in mystery, as no stats exist that tell this part of the story.

Top 5 Most Popular TLDs According to Alexa

• As of 2018, 47.8% of all TLDs were .com. It was used 477,634 times. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• .org made for 4.7% of TLDs and it was used 46,643 times. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• .ru was used 43,142 times and has 4.3% of the global share. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• 4.1% of the most popular TLDs are .net. It was used 40,671 times. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• 3% of the most popular TLDs are .de, used 30,082 times. (Source: Hayk Saakian)

Again, .com comes first among the most popular top-level domains. This is the leaders’ table when it comes to sheer domain name count. Now let’s look at the page count from those websites.

Top 5 Highest Page Count TLDs According to Google

• .com generates 25,270,000,000 results. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• .org generates 10,700,000,000 results. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• A search for .net pops up 8,520,000,000 results. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• If you search for .de, you’ll get 5,930,000,000 results. (Source: Hayk Saakian)
• .ru generates 3,530,000,000 results. (Source: Hayk Saakian)

Dot-ru is here too, but at the honorary fifth place.

Top TLDs for Personal Blogs

• .com is the most recognizable and most trusted TLD. (Source: Dynadot)
• .live is great for news blogs and blogs that update frequently. (Source: Dynadot)
• .me is good for personal blogs and branding. (Source: Dynadot)
• .name is useful for presenting the blogger as a personal brand. (Source: Dynadot)
• .space is also good for personal blogs. (Source: Dynadot)

As blogging and personal branding become more and more popular among influencers, choosing the right TLD can be vital.

Of course, .com holds the crown here too. It’s the TLD with the highest trust rating. Still, personal bloggers, in particular, might find themselves attracted to the .me TLD.

Top Abused TLDs

• .surf has 2,802 domains, out of which 2,023 are spammy/malicious ones. (Source: Spamhaus)
• .cn has 256,382, 32.8% of which are bad eggs. (Source: Spamhaus)
• Out of 21,774 domains, .tokyo has 17,124 bad ones. (Source: Spamhaus)
• .shop has 56.3% bad domains, out of 88,902 domains as a whole. (Source: Spamhaus)
• .ooo has 4,306 registered domains, out of which 3,227 are bad domains. (Source: Spamhaus)

“Abused“ domains are the ones used by professional spammers and malware operators. All in all, just never trust a stranger with a .gdn domain. (And the others on the list aren’t much better either.)

And now it’s time for a bit of fun. We deserve it, after all those TLD statistics.

The Entertaining Side of TLDs

• .site, launched in 2016, had over 140,000 domain name registrations in only a day. (Source: OnlineDomain)
• On the 21st of September 2016, .games launched and almost immediately got 3,820 domain name registrations. (Source: OnlineDomain)
• May 2019 marked the first time the number of .de domains went down since 1986. (Source: OnlineDomain)
• In 2019, Google launched .dev domains, specifically for developers and technology. (Source: OnlineDomain)
• Elon Musk purchased the domain name Tesla.com for $11 million in 2016. (Source: OnlineDomain)

TLDs are a key part of your branding. Those few letters at the end of your domain name are saying a lot. Dot-com is the most common of TLDs and, as a result, the most trusted one. People generally distrust new things, yet in this case – this might have the ring of truth to it. These TLD statistics say as much.

I hope you found them as fascinating as I did. Till next time!