Netherlands .nl Overtakes China’s .cn ccTLD

February 24, 2011
By John McCormac

The Dutch ccTLD, .nl, has overtaken the Chinese ccTLD, .cn. On 31st of January 2011, the .nl had 4,257,410 domains registered according to the .nl registry website www.sidn.nl. The .cn registry figures for January 2011 show that it has 3,494,227 domains registered. This is a massive change for the .cn ccTLD but it is largely due to the Chinese government imposing stricter rules on the registration of .cn domain names and its cleaning up of the ccTLD. The .cn ccTLD peaked at 14,082,553 registered domains in February 2009 when it overtook the German .de ccTLD as the largest ccTLD. Due to the managed registry approach adopted by the .cn registry, the .cn domain count is close to its April 2007 count. The Dutch .nl ccTLD is along with Germany’s .de and the United Kingdom’s .uk ccTLD one of the powerhouse ccTLDs of the European domain market.

HosterStats 2011 Domain Name Counts: gTLD and ccTLD Statistics

4 Responses to “ Netherlands .nl Overtakes China’s .cn ccTLD ”

  1. Tweets that mention Netherlands .nl Overtakes China’s .cn ccTLD | HosterStats.com – Knowledge From Numbers -- Topsy.com on February 24, 2011 at 12:37

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John McCormac and John McCormac, Kevin Murphy. Kevin Murphy said: RT @JMcCormac: Holland's .nl Overtakes China's .cn http://www.hosterstats.com/blog/2011/02/24/netherlands-nl-overtakes-chinas-cn-cctld/ … [...]

  2. Domain Name Wire » News » China’s .CN Domain Name Keeps Dropping - The Domain Industry's News Source on February 24, 2011 at 13:37

    [...] a far cry from the over 14 million .cn domain names that were registered at its peak in February 2009. At that point .cn had more registrations than any other country code top level [...]

  3. China’s .CN Domain Name Keeps Dropping | Domain News, Videos and Domain Blogs on February 24, 2011 at 13:47

    [...] a far cry from the over 14 million .cn domain names that were registered at its peak in February 2009. At that point .cn had more registrations than any other country code top level [...]

  4. SinoHosting on March 4, 2011 at 10:07

    This was bound to happen due to the strict regulations of the CNNIC, foreign individuals/corporations are virtually prevented to register the .cn, and even for companies in China and Chinese citizens it is extremely complicated and time-consuming to register a .cn domain, or even renew existing ones. Hopefully things will change in the near future or otherwise the .cn registry might well drop under the 1 million mark. One option would be to adopt the Hong Kong model, make .com.cn restricted and for companies only, and the .cn more flexible.

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