Curiosities about Domain Names

Domain Timeline

Date	Number of .com Domains	Domain Counter
	Symbolics.com is assigned on March 15 1985 to become the first registered domain ...	Total active .com Domains
Mrach 15 1985		1
Dec 31 1985		6
Dec 31 1986		60
Dec 31 1987		107
Dec 31 1988		estimation 290
Dec 31 1989		estimation 370
Dec 31 1990		estimation 1,820
Dec 31 1991		estimation 3,300
Dec 31 1992		estimation 9,400
	New US Clinton Gore Administration arrives Jan 23 1993 promotes the Internet - launches Whitehouse.gov Website	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 1993		estimation 23,000
Dec 31 1994		estimation 49,000
Dec 31 1995		estimation 180,000
Dec 31 1996		estimation 628,000
	Google.com is assigned Sep 15 1997	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 1997		estimation 1,420,000
Dec 31 1998		3,425,625
Dec 31 1999		8,006,100
	new Millenum more Domain Registration Companies come alive and Domain Registration fees lower	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2000		21,023,720
Dec 31 2001		23,198,677
	End of the Dot Com Bubble Speculation Unprofitable Web 1 Companies run out of financing	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2002		21,991,795
Dec 31 2003		26,207,928
	Google pushes Keyword Advertising and monetized the Web Web 2 becomes profitable	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2004		33,351,738
Dec 31 2005		46,233,988
May 31 2006		50,803,454
Dec 31 2006		61,624,166
May 31 2007		67.915.616
Dec 31 2007		69.215.937
April 30 2008		76,063,148
May 31 2008		76,490,267

.com is and remains "the one and only" domain extension
for large Businesses or any major International website.

Numerous websites can be found
using .net (initial signification for .net is "network")
or .org (initial signification for .org is "non profit organisation")


Other generic domains (.biz or .info, .tv or the european .eu.)
launched by Domain sellers after 2000 to copy the .com success,
Usually these domains are a flop,
they have no "natural" traffic.
Most of them redirect to the .com version
and if they appear to be a real website
they might have the bad cognotation to belong to a site
that was too late to get it´s .com



National Top Level Domains, however, are popular,
in particular for small businesses or websites oriented towards a national audiance:

There are 244 different national Top Level Domains, one per Country:

National Domains start to appear in 1999,
in Mai 2004 French .fr Domains simplify registrations
in November 2005 Spanish .es Domains simplify registrations

The most popular country level domains are
.cn for China
followed by .de for Germany (see some stats on .de domains by Denic)

the country with the highest amounts of Domains
per Capita is Switzerland with it´s .ch
(have a look at the interactive Switzerland Domain Map)