Public Interest Registry (PIR), the registry operator for the .ORG gTLD, announced that the domain had exceeded 11 million registrations. PIR CEO Jon Nevett called this a “a bog moment for our organization.” According to Domain Name Wire, citing zone file data, the 11 million threshold was reached in December 2023, and since the beginning of 2024, .ORG has added approximately 240,000 new domain names.
Meanwhile, most legacy gTLDs are experiencing a decline in registrations. For example, .COM has lost nearly 3.4 million registrations since the beginning of the year, and .NET has lost around 477,000. The .PRO gTLD has been hit the hardest, losing almost one third of its registrations and dropping from 718,000 to 484,000. Other gTLDs that have lost tens of thousands of registrations include .INFO, .BIZ, .ASIA, and .MOBI. In .NAME, .TEL, .COOP, .MUSEUM and .AERO, the decline is slightly less significant.
Apart from .ORG, the number of domain names has grown in only three other legacy gTLDs – .JOBS, .CAT, and .TRAVEL. They have shown a modest growth of only a few hundred each. It is worth mentioning that price caps have been removed from the contracts between ICANN and all the above stated registrars. Unlike the others, PIR has chosen not to raise rates.
