Nominet has released an updated map of the Online World to reflect the changes it has seen in domain registration during the pandemic.
The company that oversees the .uk domain registry re-drew the map to reflect the relative size of the national registries.
Nominet highlighted an increase of 5% or more in Domains under Management (DUM) for 109 Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs). The rise is said to be due to businesses around the world moving online in response to lockdown restrictions, which prompted the increase in domain names that included words such as “delivery” and “online”.
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The domain world continued to grow and expand into new territories in 2020, with a new ccTLD also emerging. South Sudan launched .ss, which had been assigned to the country in January 2019.
According to research from Growth Intelligence, in the UK alone, more than 85,000 businesses launched online stores or joined online marketplaces from April-July 2020.
Beyond the UK, of all the domain names on the internet, globally ccTLDs account for 33%.
The other 67% is gTLDs, of which 47% are domain names ending in .com. Nominet reveals that the top five ccTLDs are: Tokelau, China, Germany, UK and the Netherlands.
Eleanor Bradley, MD of Nominet Registry said: “We know the world is not an equal place and, with some noticeable exceptions, this map visually underlines the gap between more mature digital economies and those where the growth is yet to come.
“Figures overall also show the impact of lockdown on established country codes, like .UK, which saw a spike in registrations as businesses without a strong digital presence saw the urgent need to focus online.”
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