VB.com Domain Hall of Fame Activation Timeline

Domain Timeline

Date	Number of .com Domains	Domain Counter
	Symbolics.com is assigned on March 15 1985 to become the first registered domain ...	Total active .com Domains
March 15 1985		1
Dec 31 1985		6
Dec 31 1986		60
Dec 31 1987		107
Dec 31 1988		estimation 230
Dec 31 1989		estimation 568
Dec 31 1990		estimation 1,402
Dec 31 1991		estimation 2,602
Dec 31 1992		estimation 3,013
	New US Clinton Gore Administration arrives Jan 23 1993 promotes the Internet - launches Whitehouse.gov Website	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 1993		estimation 4,712
Dec 31 1994		estimation 9,005
Dec 31 1995		estimation 28,788
Dec 31 1996		estimation 188,098
	Google.com is assigned Sep 15 1997	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 1997		estimation 421,312
Dec 31 1998		3,425,625
Dec 31 1999		8,006,100
	new Millenum more Domain Registration Companies come alive and Domain Registration fees lower	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2000		21,023,720
Dec 31 2001		23,198,677
	End of the Dot Com Bubble Speculation Unprofitable Web 1 Companies run out of financing	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2002		21,991,795
Dec 31 2003		26,207,928
	Google pushes Keyword Advertising and monetized the Web Web 2 becomes profitable	Total active .com Domains
Dec 31 2004		33,351,738
Dec 31 2005		46,233,988
Dec 31 2006		61,624,166
Dec 31 2007		69,215,937
Dec 31 2008		78,776,555
Dec 31 2009		84,000,293
Dec 31 2010		91,724,762
Dec 31 2011		99,364,359
Dec 31 2012		106,080,969

click on the Logos of HP, GE and TI
to discover the history
of 3 websites that were exeptionally ahead of their times ...

.com is and remains "the one and only" domain extension
for large Businesses or any major International website.
On an International Level
"A Brand without .com ... is not a Brand"

Numerous websites can be found
using .net (initial signification for .net is "network")
or .org (initial signification for .org is "non profit organisation")


Other generic domains (.biz or .info, .tv or the european .eu.)
launched by Domain sellers after 2000 to copy the .com success,
Usually these domains are a flop,
they have no "natural" traffic.
Most of them redirect to the .com version
and if they appear to be a real website
they might have the bad cognotation to belong to a site
that was too late to get it´s .com



National Top Level Domains, however, are popular,
in particular for small businesses or websites oriented towards a national audiance:

There are 244 different national Top Level Domains, one per Country:

National Domains start to appear at the end of the 90ties,
German .de Domains started registration Nov 5 1986.
Mai 2004 French .fr Domain Registrations were simplified by Afnic
November 2005 Spanish .es Domains were simplified.

The most popular country level domains are
.cn for China
followed by .de for Germany (see some stats on .de domains by Denic)

the country with the highest amounts of Domains
per Capita is Switzerland with it´s .ch
(have a look at the interactive Switzerland Domain Map)