Uplift in Q2 can't mask year-over-year decline.

Chart shows top level domains down 2.8 million year over year, but .com and .net up 8.5 million

.Com and .Net are doing well when combined, but other TLDs are struggling year over year. Image from Verisign.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) published its Q2 2021 Domain Name Industry Brief (pdf) this afternoon. The report calculates the total base of registered domain names and tracks recent trends.

According to the report, the total number of registered domains shot up 3.8 million during Q2, closing at 367.3 million. That's still down by 2.8 million from the end of Q2 2020, though.

You can blame a precipitous fall in registered new top level domains for most of the deficit. According to Verisign's calculations, new top level domains fell by 27.8% year over year to 22.9 million. Many new TLD providers that offered cheap or free domain registrations have dialed back promotions. New TLDs stabilized this year, though, ticking up slightly between the end of Q1 and Q2.

Country code domains gained 1.2 million during the quarter but are 2.4 million lower than the end of Q2 last year. That's thanks to free .tk domain names. Excluding .tk domains, the base of registered ccTLD domains is up 0.3% year over year.

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