Four million domain names were added to the internet in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to VeriSign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief.
The additions brought the total number of registered domain names to 288 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) by the end of the year.
The increase of four million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.3% over the third quarter of 2014. Worldwide registrations have grown by 16.9 million, or 6.2% year-over-year.
The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the fourth quarter of 2014, reaching a combined total of approximately 130.6 million domain names in the domain name base for .com and .net.
This represents a 2.7% increase YoY. As of December 31, 2014, the base of registered names in .com totaled 115.6 million names, while .net equaled 15 million names.
New .com and .net registrations totaled 8.2 million during the fourth quarter of 2014, the same as in the previous quarter.
During the fourth quarter of 2014, VeriSign's average daily Domain Name System (DNS) query load was 110 billion across all TLDs operated by VeriSign, with a peak of 146 billion.
Compared to the previous quarter, the daily average decreased 3.7% and the peak decreased 54%. The daily average query load increased 33.5% YOY and the peak query load increased 47.1%.
The DNS is a critical component of the internet, but its security is often overlooked. Implementing DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) into the DNS can help to minimize attack surfaces and enhance security postures, according to VeriSign.