Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Portugal reports lockdown boom continued through the summer

Kevin Murphy, September 16, 2020, Domain Registries

While the coronavirus pandemic is well past its first peak in western Europe, the lingering effects of government restrictions is a gift that continues to give for at least one ccTLD.

Associação DNS.PT today reported that total registrations of .pt names in August (6,843) were 35% higher than during the same period last year, and that July’s number was 17.28% higher than the year-ago month.

The registry added that the trend seems to be continuing into September.

The company said that registrations were mostly driven by “catering and domestic service companies, gyms and social solidarity projects” getting online for the first time due to pandemic restrictions.

Oddly, the new numbers appear to have been presented today at an in-person, though socially distanced, lecture by DNS.PT and government officials.

Portugal ccTLD says growth better than expected during pandemic

Kevin Murphy, May 6, 2020, Domain Registries

The Portuguese ccTLD operator has become the latest registry to say that it is still seeing growth despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Associação DNS.PT recently said (via Google Translate) that “the registration in .pt is increasing considerably, we would even say above the expected”.

For the period of January 1 to April 27, .pt added 32,671 new domains, DNS.PT said.

However, that appears to be a considerable drop in regs when compared to the first quarter of 2019 (almost a month shorter period), when it saw 36,930 new registrations. It added 121,359 in the whole of 2019.

The registry said that 359 of these domains — about 1% — appeared to be directly related to the pandemic. About half a dozen have been deleted for violating DNS.PT’s terms of service.

The whole .pt space comprised over 1.2 million domains as of February.

Coronavirus has had a relatively small impact on health in Portugal, compared to other European countries. So far, it’s recorded a little over 1,000 deaths from the disease, from a population of 10.8 million.

Portugal joins the million-domain club

Kevin Murphy, March 15, 2018, Domain Registries

Portuguese ccTLD .pt passed one million registrations for the first time earlier this month, DNS.pt said this week.
The millionth name was meckos.pt, registered by a local textile machinery company of that name, the registry said.
The ccTLD ended 2017 with 976,370 names under management and as of today stands at 1,001,552 names, according to statistics published on the DNS.pt web site.
The company says it is currently growing fast, taking 10,693 new registrations in January, up 30% compared to the same month last year.