53 Domain Stats for 2022: Market Share, Registrars, TLDs & More

Looking for the latest domain stats? Whether you’re running your own website or searching for a new domain, it’s important to be in the loop with the latest information.

We did the research for you and put together the latest domain name stats and facts you don’t want to miss.

There are 53 domain stats in this list so to make it easier to find the stats you need, you can use this table of contents to skip ahead:

• General Domain Facts and Stats
• Domain Cost and Value
• Domain Extensions and TLDs
• Domain Registrars
• Top Performing Domains of the World
• Domain Names on CMS Platforms

General Domain Facts and Stats

To get started, we’re diving into the facts and statistics that apply to domains in general along with some fun facts on their history:

1. The first domain Symbolics.com was registered in 1985 and by 1992, around 15,000 .com domains had been registered. (GCN)
2. By the end of 2010, there were 205.3 million domains registered overall. (GCN)
3. Most of the first 100 domains that were registered were brand names. (Domain Holdings)
4. There are 1,500 gTLDs in use but only 21 of them make up a vast majority of domain names. (Domain.com)
5. There are currently over 367.3 million domain name registrations in the world. (VeriSign)
6. In Q2 2021, there are 157 million .com domains registered. (VeriSign)
7. After .com, the next popular domain extension is .tk with 24.7 million domains registered. (VeriSign)
8. The country with the highest number of registered domains is China with over 8.8 million domain names accounting for 33.80% of the global share. (Hosting Tribunal)
9. The US has only 3.6 million domains registered amounting to 14.04% of the global share. (Hosting Tribunal)
10. There has been a decrease of 2.8 million or 0.7% in domain registrations from Q2 2020 to Q2 2021. (VeriSign)

Source: (VeriSign)

Interested to know more about how domains work? Check out the ultimate guide to domains.

Statistics on Domain Costs and Value

Ready to get into how much domains retail for then and now? Here are some domain numbers that will wow you:

11. Domain names were free until 1995. (Domain Holdings)
12. A domain name typically costs $14.99 per year. (WPBeginner)
13. In 2021, only a handful of domain registrars like Bluehost offer free domain names with their hosting plans. (Bluehost)
14. The most expensive public domain sale in history was Business.com that sold for a whopping $345 million in 2007 to RH Donnelley. (Forbes)
15. Cars.com sold in 2015 when the domain was valued at $872 million. The transaction was not made public. (SEC Filing)
16. Internet.com sold for $18 million back in 2009. It was back on the market earlier this year with a starting bid of $35 million. (GoDaddy and Business Wire)
17. Elon Musk purchased the domain name Tesla.com for $11 million in 2016. (Yahoo)
18. Google.com was mistakenly sold for $12 in 2015. Google offered to buy it back at $6,006.13 but when they discovered the owner was donating the money to a charity, they paid double that. (CNN)
19. MIT researchers estimate the value of the domain industry to be worth $8 billion. (Forbes)
20. While some domain flippers make hundreds of thousands of dollars with just one domain, most average $100-$1000 profit and sometimes make a loss. (GoDaddy)

Surprised by some of these stats? The one that bums us out is that domain names were free till 1995! All you had to do was make a phone call to register a domain name which could now be worth millions.

There are some web hosts that offer free domain name registration when you purchase a hosting plan. Our recommendation goes to Bluehost. They are by far the most reliable hosting service and domain registrar in the world.

You’ll get a free .com domain name, SSL certificate, and CDN access when you sign up for one of their hosting plans.

Domain Extension and TLD Stats: How Many TLDs Exist?

There are thousands of domain extensions with .com being the most sought after. Others include .net, .org, .biz, and.gov.

You’ll also find country-code TLDs such as .us, .de, .ca, .uk, and more.

Want to learn more about which TLD is right for you? See our on how to choose the best domain name extension.

Below are the latest TLD statistics that show us there is a stable growth in domain registrations. Check it out:

21. Q2 2021 closed with 367.3 million domain names registrered across all TLDs. (VeriSign)
22. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of 170.6 million domain name registrations in the domain name base. (VeriSign)
23. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 8.5 million domain name registrations, or 5.2%, year over year. (VeriSign)
24. New .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 11.7 million at the end of the second quarter of 2021, compared to 11.1 million domain name registrations at the end of the second quarter of 2020. (VeriSign)
25. There are 157.7 million country-code TLD (ccTLD) domain name registrations in total. (VeriSign)
26. The most popular country code TLD with 24.7 million registrations is .tk and it stands for Tokelau, a self-governing territory of New Zealand. (VeriSign)
27. In 2012, ICANN classified 1,232 new TLDs. (Hosting Tribunal)
28. More than 23 million domain names have been registered under the newly-released generic TLDs since 2013. (Hosting Tribunal)
29. The top generic domain extension is .xyz with over 6.2 million registrations. (ICANN Wiki)

Domain Registrar Statistics

Domain name registrars allow you to purchase and register your domain.

We all know popular domain registrars like GoDaddy and Bluehost but in reality, there are hundreds more!

Let’s dive right into the top statistics of domain registrars across the globe.

30. There are over 1,000 registrars for domain name registration services. (ICANN)
31. The top domain registrar is GoDaddy, which manages 84+ million domains. (GoDaddy)
32. Namecheap holds 8% of the domain registrar market share. (Statista)
33. Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd., HiChina, owns 5% of the domain registrar market share, coming in third place. (Statista)
34. The Public Domain Registry has registered over 5.1 million domains. (Public Domain Registry)
35. The annual accreditation fee for all registrars is US$4,000 per year. (ICANN)
36. Bluehost’s popularity has increased 1.2% year over year. Approximately 1.7% of all websites are hosted with Bluehost. (Berkaweb)

Want to know which our the best domain registrars? See our list of the Best Domain Name Registrars.

Top Domains: What Are the Most Popular Domains?

While there are billions of domain names out there, there are a handful that take the top ranks and are popular across the world.

Here are some statistics about the top domains and popular TLDs:

37. The 3 most visited domains in 2021 were Google, YouTube, and Facebook. (Statista)
38. Google.com gets 86.9 billion monthly visits. (Statista)
39. YouTube.com ranks #2 and gets 22.8 billion monthly visits. (Statista)
40. Facebook.com ranks #3 and gets 20 billion monthly visits. (Statista)
41. Amazon.com is the most visited eCommerce domain in 2021 with 4.4 billion monthly visits. (Similar Web and Statista)
42. The most visited social media domains are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in that order. (Statista)
43. The highest ranked streaming domain is Netflix. It ranks #12 among all top domains. (Similar Web)
44. Zoom.us takes the #18 spot on the top ranking domain list. (Similar Web)

The numbers we just discussed are huge! Some of these domain get billions of visitors in a single day!

Up next, we’ll discuss how many domains are hosted on the most popular content management systems (CMS) of the world.

Domain Name CMS Statistics

A content management system (CMS) is a software or tool that helps you build a website easily without needing to write any code. The most popular CMSes of the world include WordPress, Shopify, Joomla, Magento, Drupal, and Wix.

Here are some interesting statistics about domains being used on these platforms:

45. Of the total active domains (estimated at over 1.3 billion), around 455,000,000 websites are using WordPress today. (Digital.com)
46. Over 42% domains across the world use WordPress.org. (W3 Techs)
47. Shopify is #2 and powers 4.2% of domains on the World Wide Web. (W3 Techs)
48. WordPress is behind 30.3% of the top 1,000 websites. (Digital.com)
49. 19,810 domains currently run on Shopify Plus. (Store Leads)
50. 72.9% of Shopify stores have a .com domain, 3.1% of Shopify stores have a .co.uk domain, and 2.8% of Shopify stores have a .ca domain. (Store Leads)
51. More than 2.5 million domains worldwide use Joomla. (Hosting Tribunal)
52. Joomla powers 2.2% of the World Wide Web and has a global CMS market share of 3.5% (Hosting Tribunal)
53. 34.3% of all domains do not use a content management system. (W3 Techs)

There you have it! That’s our compilation of the latest domain statistics. We hope you found the information and data you needed.

As you learn more about domains, here are some interesting articles to read up on:

• 19 Powerful Domain Name Generators for the Perfect Website Name
• 9+ Best Places to Find a Domain Name for Sale
• How to Register a Domain Name for Your Website (Beginner’s Guide)

The first post will help you brainstorm ideas to find the best domain name for your own website. The last 2 posts will help you easily buy and register the domain!