With the .AT domain name space approaching its one millionth
registration sometime in the next twelve months, the Austrian registry
nic.at has released the second of its twice-yearly reports. This edition
of the .AT Report finds that Germans love .AT domain names with 190,000
of the 939,951 domain names registered on 1 July. However the Swiss and
the British are also interested in .AT domain names.The report is full of interesting statistics and titbits for the domain name connoisseur.
The distribution of domain names between business and individuals is close to even with 53 per cent of all domains registered to legal entities such as businesses and organisations while the remaining 47 per cent to private individuals.
And of the 939,951 .AT domains, 496,781 are owned by businesses and private individuals. Almost 80 per cent of registrants own just one .AT domain while 61,000 have registered two. The other end of the spectrum is more likely to be an exception to the general rule: a total of 6,386 .AT domains are registered with a single owner.
As could be expected, domain names are spread throughout the country with Austria’s capital and most populous city, Vienna, having the most registrations (197,556). However there is one town of almost 800 people that holds the record of domain names registered per person. Austria’s domain name “capital” is Holzhausen near Linz where there is an average of 1.58 domain names registered per person. Leibnitz in southern Styria is one other town in Austria with more domain names than people.
On the length of domain names, the report finds that the majority contain nine to eleven characters however there are three domain names containing the maximum 63 characters. One of the three references a mathematical phenomenon discovered in 1882 by Ferdinand von Lindemann – the transcendental nature of pi:
141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.at
The other two 63-character domains are:
- falcons-mohr-falcons-sale-pure-white-black-gyr-peregrines-saker.at
- oesterreich-urlaub-wandern-vorarlberg-bregenzerwald-warth-lech.at.
Popular strings within domain names include those that deal with the
capital, such as “Vienna” and “Wien”, while others such as “Tirol” or
“Tyrol” and “Salzburg” or “Sbg” are also popular.
The report also looks at the likely introduction of new generic Top
Level Domains in addition to the current 21 gTLDs. ICANN has been
debating the introduction of new gTLDs for several years and it is
expected that late this year or early next ICANN will approve their
introduction and begin accepting applications for new gTLDs.
Nic.at is looking to capitalise on the introduction of new gTLDs, using
their experience as a registry operator to assist applicants with
consultation, their application to ICANN, and if successful, the
registry operation with their Registry-in-a-box. Depending on the
requirements, Registry-in-a-box offers several different levels of
assistance and support.
To download the second .AT Report in German or English, go to the nic.at website here.
To register your .AT domain name, check out EuroDNS here.