The Internet has evolved in a number of aspects over the past three decades. Java script, Flash technology and mobile-friendly websites are all created in the past 30 years, in addition to many more. However, there are a few Internet specifics that continue to be enjoy great popularity even today. One of them is the dot-com (.com) domain, which celebrates 30th birthday this month!
Dot-com, the world’s most popular web domain, turns 30 in March. Today, there are nearly 116 million .com domain names registered. This means that every fourth web address uses this a .com domain. These websites are accessed trillions times per day.
The very first dot.com domain name was registered back in March 1985. At the start adoption was slow and by 1993 there are a little over 100 dot-com websites. It wasn’t until 1995 when .com registrations finally started to increase. As a result, for just five years, the number rose from a little over 9,000 to 20 million.
Does Dot-Come Have a Future
Even though .com domains enjoy complete dominance today, it is hard to predict whether they will continue to be a leader tomorrow. After all, technology and the web are constantly changing.
For instance, sooner or later the availability of .com domain names will run out. Still, that will not happen any time soon. Even if every single web users today (2.5 billion people) registers a dot-com domain per second for the next 30 million years, they take less than a billionth of a billionth of 1% of the total availability. This means that .com domains will continue to be available for a very long time, at least technically.
The real threat for dot-com domains has nothing do with availability, but with businesses and their branding efforts. Dot-com domain names are currently the most popular option for companies. Some of the world’s most recognized brands continue to rely on the good old .com. In addition to that, every company that is included in Fortune 500 uses a dot-com domain.
Despite that, acquiring a short, memorable .com name is becoming more and more difficult. As a result, not all companies have got a domain name of their own choice.
To solve this issue, the internet industry regulator ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) launched over a thousand new Internet addresses endings, which are known as TLDs (Top-Level Domains). In the most basic terms, this means that business now have bigger freedom personalizing their domain names. For example, a real estate company can acquire a domain name like .property or a restaurant can get a .com website ending.
The first wave of these Top-Level Domain was rolled out in early 2014. Nevertheless, their registrations already amount to over 4 million. With the rise of mobile apps, the future of dot-com seems uncertain.
