A domain is an equivalent of an address in the virtual world, thanks to which one may easily access any Internet site, which belongs to the World of the Internet.
Generally, Internet domains may be divided into the so-called global and national (ccTLD) domains. The first group encompasses such extensions as .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz whereas the second one ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) encompasses for example: .pl (Poland), .de (Germany), .fr (France), .co.uk (Great Britain), .us (USA).
Some persons also consider the .eu domain, dedicated to the European Union countries, also as a national domain. However, it seems best to include the .eu domains as part of the global domain group. A similar function may be assigned to .asia domain (dedicated to Asian countries) or .africa domain, the one that although not yet created, shall be dedicated to African countries.
Nowadays, ongoing works devoted to the implementation of new top level domains are being carried out. They mainly refer to the following extensions: .eco, .food, .kids, .cars, .berlin, .nyc, etc. Will such domains be popular in the future? We will see, although there are many sceptics who claim that new domains will not become successfull.
Domain statistics
According to the latest data presented by VeriSign, by the end of the second quarter of the year 2011, there had been 215 million of registered top level domains, which constitutes the 2,5% increase in comparison to the second quarter of the year 2011 and the 8,6% increase with respect to the corresponding period in the year of 2010. As one may observe the market of Internet domains is subject to increase.
National domains (ccTLD) constitute over 39% of all the domains with the result of 84,6 million names. There has been noted a growing local popularity of the following types of domains .de, .pl, .fr, .es, etc.
Although national extensions tend to supplant the general .com domain, the latter still constitutes the most popular extension in the world, with the result of 95 million registered domains (44% of the total domain market).
The worlds’ most popular domains are constituted by the following: .com, .de (Germany), .net, .co.uk (United Kingdom), .org, .info, .nl (Netherlands), .cn (China), .eu (European Union) and .ru (Russia).
The .PL domain
The Polish national domain .pl has been successfully functioning in comparison with the other extensions. With the result of 2,2 million of domains (along with .com.pl, .net.pl, waw.pl, etc.) Polish domain occupies sixth position, with respect to its quantity, in Europe. Poland precedes such countries as France or Spain. Moreover, Polish national domain is one of the most rapidly developing registries in the world (with regard to the percentage increase in domain quantities). However, the main problem of the Polish domain market is still constituted by their high upkeep prices. Poland's Western neighbours pay at most a few euros per year subject to domain upkeep whereas in Poland domain renewals are 40 PLN (~ 10 EUR). Considering such prices it will be difficult to maintain the current increase dynamics.
Nevertheless, we hope that the .pl domain registry NASK will finally decide to decrease the prices of domains, as was done long ago by other big registries in Europe.
New domains available soon?
It is worth to point out that the plans on implementation of new top level domains are currently being drawn up. Everyone, who possesses sufficient equity (several hundred thousand dollars for the launch of a domain registry and several thousand a year necessary for its upkeep) may submit an application for a new domain, for example .doctor, .holidays, .eco, .music, .cars, .sex, etc. New domains shall appear as soon as the year 2012. Will they become successful? We will see, although there are more sceptics than optimists, who could foretell success to the new extensions.