Let's Talk Domains: Interesting Facts and Figures About COM and NET Domains
Today, virtually every business, organization, and group has an online presence. We access these websites not through the IP addresses used by computers, but through memorable names.
Today, names like Google.com, Microsoft.com, and Amazon.com are well-known examples of TLDs (top-level domains). Each TLD is unique and consists of the letters A-Z (case-insensitive), the numbers 0-9, a dash "-," and a period "." (Domain names cannot begin or end with the last two characters).
Since there are a finite number of character combinations in domain names, especially when they are constructed from memorable words or phrases, their number is actually increased by the use of domain endings (suffixes)—top-level domains. Suffixes are added to each TLD name and also serve to classify them. The most popular suffix is undoubtedly .COM (originally denoting a commercial enterprise). Other common domain extensions include .NET, .GOV, .ORG, .EDU, and a number of geographical designations, such as .CO.UK and .CO.JP.
In the future, with the introduction of new top-level domains (gTLDs) and, consequently, new suffixes, the balance may shift. However, for now, domains registered in .COM remain unrivaled in the global domain space.
According to Verisign, which manages the .COM and .NET domains, there are currently 102,815,927 registered .COM domain names and 14,967,256 registered .NET domain names.
Just because a domain name is registered doesn't mean it's an active website. It simply means someone has reserved the name for current or future use.
The dominance of .COM names is illustrated in a diagram comparing the two domain spaces. The diagram also demonstrates the "duplication" of names in the two zones, as the same name is often registered in both the .COM and .NET domain zones.
It's important to note that a name registered in both domains doesn't necessarily mean both registrations belong to the same company. Sometimes, this can indicate aggressive and even speculative policies on the part of certain companies in the domain market, often purchasing "big" names in different zones. Therefore, it's very common for the same names with different suffixes to belong to different organizations—sometimes legitimate, and sometimes with dubious intentions.
Fortunately, misleading registrations are no longer as harmful as they once were, as people now rely more on search engines to determine the true purpose of a website (domain name). Today, users are increasingly less likely to enter the full domain name (http:address) into the browser's address bar. Search results rank legitimate domain names above dubious ones, protecting users from mistakes.
Remarkably, as the chart shows, only 12.54% of the 102.8 million .COM names are duplicated in the .NET namespace. Meanwhile, the vast majority of names in the .NET zone (86.13%) have counterparts with the .COM extension.
Below is the distribution of the lengths of all names registered in the .COM domain.
The most common (modal) length of .COM domain names is 12 characters, and the average length of names within this domain is 13,539 characters.
Below is a similar chart for the .NET domain zone, which shows that the modal name length in this zone is 10 characters, and the average is 12,394 characters.
There are also very long names. Here are some examples of names chosen at random, each containing 63 characters:
ALTERNATIVE-RENEWABLE-ENERGY-STOCKS-INVESTMENT-WIND-SOLAR-POWER.COM
AXIALCENTRIFUGALRADIALINDUSTRIALMULTIVANEFANSVENTILATORSBLOWERS.COM
ASOCIACIONDEGUIASINTERPRETESDELPATRONATODELAALHAMBRAYGENERALIFE.COM
CARPET-CLEANING-ORANGE-COUNTYRUGSMATTRESSSTEAMUPHOLSTERYODORPET.COM
One can only envy the patience of potential clients of companies with such names who try to find out the organization's website address over the phone.
