March 25, 2026
33 min read
We analyzed 4.13 million .ai domain names and subdomains — including 1.17 million unique root registrations — in the DomainsProject dataset and cross-referenced registry data, aftermarket sales, and government revenue figures to map the .ai explosion — from 48,000 registrations in 2018 to over one million today, and what it means for the 14,000 residents of Anguilla now collecting an estimated $93 million per year from two letters. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.
March 25, 2026
19 min read
We parsed 50.6 million hostnames in the .xyz namespace and found 13.3 million direct registrations generating 37.6 million subdomains. .xyz is the largest new gTLD on Earth and the 4th-largest gTLD overall — ahead of the UK's .uk and level with Brazil's .br. But a fresh DNS pass complicates the 'live infrastructure' story: only 42% of .xyz roots still resolve. The real .xyz is a barbell — a genuine developer and crypto core wrapped in a vast promotional-churn tail. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party resolution data.
March 24, 2026
26 min read
We parsed 52.2 million observed hostnames in the .cn namespace — the world's 6th-largest TLD — and ran a fresh A-record crawl against it. Only 49.0% of .cn hostnames return a live IPv4 address, far below the 58.9% whole-namespace rate and the 70-81% seen across European ccTLDs. China has 1.41 billion people and roughly 0.037 .cn hostnames per person, the lowest density of any major internet economy. The data points to why: a regulatory gauntlet of real-name verification and ICP licensing, a super-app economy where WeChat Mini Programs replace websites, and a namespace where a large share of names are registered or observed but never go live. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party resolution data.
March 23, 2026
19 min read
We analyzed 43.8 million observed hostnames in the .uk namespace — the 9th-largest TLD on Earth — and asked why Britain still runs two competing versions of its own country code. Twelve years after Nominet opened direct .uk registration alongside legacy .co.uk, the legacy format still dominates. Inside the split, the governance crisis, and how much of the namespace actually resolves. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.
March 23, 2026
30 min read
We parsed 36.3 million observed hostnames in the .nl namespace — rank #11 of 1,511 TLDs. ISP reverse-DNS from Ziggo, XS4ALL, and Chello accounts for a large share of them. The Netherlands — about 17.9 million people — registered the first active country-code domain in 1986, hosts the world's largest Internet exchange, headquarters RIPE NCC, and produced the DNS software that powers the global root. At roughly 2.03 observed hostnames per resident, .nl is the densest national namespace in Europe, and 71.7% of those hostnames return a live A record — well above the 58.9% whole-namespace rate. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.
March 23, 2026
19 min read
We observed 400.8 million hostnames under .net — the #2 namespace on the Internet behind only .com — against roughly 13 million registry registrations, a ~30x gap. .net's hostname mass comes overwhelmingly from provider infrastructure: CDN edge nodes, dynamic-DNS, ISP reverse-DNS, and mail/hosting back-ends that mint subdomains by the thousand. And 72.6% of those names return a live A record, well above the 58.9% whole-namespace rate. The TLD created in 1985 for 'network' organizations became literally the Internet's network layer. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party resolution data.
March 23, 2026
28 min read
We counted 50.3 million observed hostnames in the .br namespace — the 8th-largest TLD on Earth and the largest ccTLD in the Americas. Brazil built the most elaborate domain categorization system of any country: a heavily-structured second-level system with com.br for commerce alongside dozens of credential-gated professional zones for licensed lawyers, doctors, and engineers, mandatory government ID for every registration, and no public direct .br registration. A 9 June 2026 A-record crawl shows 60.6% of those hostnames still resolve — slightly above the whole-namespace average. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party resolution data.
March 22, 2026
26 min read
We analyzed 3.18 billion observed hostnames across 1,511 TLDs and found that ten island territories with a combined population under 500,000 host 39.1 million hostnames. Tokelau's free-domain .tk holds 7.2 million hostnames but only 2.5% resolve. Tuvalu's .tv funded the nation's UN membership. Niue lost control of .nu entirely. Three islands, three models, three very different outcomes. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.
March 22, 2026
24 min read
We analyzed 3.18 billion observed hostnames across 1,511 TLDs and found .de ranks 3rd globally with 117.7 million hostnames — the largest country-code TLD on Earth, larger than .org and every other ccTLD. 75.2% of those names still return a live A record, among the highest liveness of any major TLD. How a Frankfurt cooperative charging EUR 2.20 per domain outbuilt every other nation's namespace. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party resolution data.
March 20, 2026
22 min read
We analyzed 3.18 billion observed hostnames across 1,511 TLDs to measure .com's dominance — 1.36 billion hostnames, 42.7% of the namespace, one registry operator, zero competition. But only 57.2% of those .com hostnames return a live A record. What a government-granted monopoly means for infrastructure risk, pricing, and the future of the namespace. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.