Domain statistics for March 2010: the Ukrainian Internet lost 10,000 domains.
Hostmaster traditionally publishes statistics on the state of the domain market at the beginning of each month.March dataThe data were particularly interesting because they revealed the results of processes that occurred on the Ukrainian Internet several months earlier. In absolute terms, the total number of domains in the .UA zone increased by only 834 in March 2010. The increase in February was 9,610, and in January, 4,733. Thus, the increase in the total number of domains in March was 10 times smaller than in February and 5 times smaller than in January. Analyzing the statistics for March provided by Hostmaster, it becomes clear that the number of domains on the Ukrainian Internet decreased by 10,000 in March.
What explains these trends? The Ukrainian Internet is experiencing a growth in the number of users and advertising budgets seeking to earn revenue. The rapid growth in the number of domains is a natural process that should be observed in this situation.
The decrease in the number of domains that occurred in March is nothing more than a reflection of processes that began in the Ukrainian Internet several months ago.
So, in March 2010, the number of domains in the crimea.ua, org.ua, sebastopol.ua, and ks.ua zones decreased. The crimea.ua zone lost 4,600 domain names, while the org.ua zone saw a decrease of 5,100 domains. Org.ua led the absolute decrease in the number of domain names in March. This is explained by the fact that domain names in this zone now have expiration dates, which they previously did not have. Accordingly, the decrease in their total number means that owners did not renew their domains. A decrease of 5,000 out of a total of over 100,000 is approximately 5%. In other words, the Ukrainian Internet lost 5% of its domains in the org.ua zone in March. This is not a lot in absolute terms, but it is significant in relative terms. If the rate of decline in the number of domains continues (which is unlikely), ORG.UA will be able to say goodbye to half of its domain names within a year.
It is noteworthy that information about changes to the registration rules at org.ua was not provided publicly – on the websiteHostmasterand domain administratorORG.UAshe is not there.
The decrease in the number of registrations in the crimea.ua and sebastopol.ua zones was a consequence of updating the domain data, whichbeganIn September 2008, Hostmaster emphasized that the goal of the update was to reduce the number of "dead" domains—those registered but not in use. March likely marked the month when many domain owners failed to renew their domains, resulting in a decrease of more than 4,000, or 70%, of names in the crimea.ua zone and 700, or 72%, of names in the Sebastopol.ua zone.
Meanwhile, other Ukrainian internet domain zones are showing strong growth. Traditionally, the com.ua zone has seen an increase in domain names – in March, the number of names in this zone grew by 4,000, or 2.5%. General-purpose zones such as net.ua (+811, or 2.9%) and in.ua (+495, or 2.6%) also showed significant growth. Among regional domain names, the largest growth was demonstrated by if.ua (+882, or 9.4%), kiev.ua (+821, or 1.9%), rv.ua (+666, or 8.9%), km.ua (+228, or 10.8%), and cv.ua (+484, or 12%).
Thus, domain statistics for March provide a clear example of the cleansing of the Ukrainian internet from unused domain names. In March, the number of names on the Ukrainian internet decreased by 10,000, or 2%. This cleansing of the Ukrainian internet domain space will generally benefit business owners and ordinary users. However, the processes unfolding in the Ukrainian domain space have exposed long-standing problems in the domain business: a lack of transparency in the activities of market participants and registrars, which negatively impacts the market as a whole.
