The increase of four million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.6 per cent over the second quarter of 2014. Worldwide registrations have grown by 18.1 million, or 6.8 per cent, year over year.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the third quarter of 2014, reaching a combined total of 130 million domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net.
This represents a 3.3 per cent increase year over year. As of September 30, 2014, the base of registered names in .com equaled 114.9 million names, while .net equaled 15.1 million names.
New .com and .net registrations totalled 8.7 million during the third quarter of 2014. In the third quarter of 2013, new .com and .net registrations totalled 8.3million.
During the third quarter of 2014, VeriSign's average daily domain name system (DNS) query load was 114 billion across all TLDs operated by VeriSign, with a peak of 318 billion, the highest average and peak query loads in a single quarter to date.
Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average increased 20.1 per cent and the peak increased 55.6 per cent. Year over year, the daily average query load increased 40 per cent and the peak query load increased 202.1 per cent.
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.
Copies of the 2014 third quarter Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained at VerisignInc.com/DNIB.
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