The Public Interest Registry (PIR) have released their latest report, the ‘dashboard’ which details the performance of the .ORG TLD between July and December 2012. Domain Resellers take note – the .ORG domain name extension is still growing! It’s been one of the most popular top level domains available in the last decade and it’s available through Domainbox.com.
2012 was a great year for .ORG, in June they passed the 10 Million registered domains milestone. In total, they added 416,301 domains last year, which represents a 4.3% annual increase. They also invested in the New gTLD programme, applying for both .NGO and .ONG.
Renewal rates also stayed strong in the second half of 2012, with the ‘blended rate’, defined as ‘the average of one, two and three or more years’, at 74.4%. Another useful metric is the number of active sites utilising the TLD. An active site are those that receive a valid response when queries. Parked pages, protected pages and referral sites are removed from the base of active sites. In total, 84.5% of the .ORG domain names registered in the second half of 2012 are active.
The interest in .ORG is growing globally. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of registrations in the Asian Pacific region grew by 47%, in the Latin American market by 25% and in the African market by 23%. In their conclusion, PIR say they will:
‘embark on a new initiative in the coming year to market more directly to our international communities.’
It’s important for our domain name resellers to keep up with the latest trends in the industry. This information can help you identify new opportunities for your clients and ensure that they have the best advice available to them before registering domain names. .ORG has long been one of the TLDs that businesses should register to protect their brand names and increase visibility. As time goes on this is only going to become more and more important.