Internet grows to more than 246 million domain names

More than five million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of registered domain names as of September 30, 2012 to more than 246 million worldwide across all Top-Level Domains (TLDs), a report said Monday.

According to Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign Inc, a provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world, the increase of 5.7 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4 percent over the second quarter of 2012, and marks the seventh straight quarter with greater than two percent growth.

"Worldwide registrations have grown by 26.4 million, or 12 percent, since the third quarter of 2011", a VeriSign statement said.

The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the third quarter of 2012, reaching a combined total of 119.9 million domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net.

This represents 1 percent increase in the base over the second quarter of 2012 and a 7.1 percent increase over the third quarter of 2011.

As of September 30, 2012, the base of registered names in .com equalled 105 million names, while .net equalled 14.9 million names, it was stated.