Strong growth for .org domain names in 2011

The number of .org domain names has now passed the nine million mark, it has been reported.

According to The Dashboard — a biannual report on .org domain names — there were 9.2 million organizations using the Web address extension at the end of June 2011.

This represented a net gain of around 350,000 registrations during the first half of 2011, and a 4% rate of growth.

New .org registrations increased by 14.6%, while the domain name renewal rate stood at 75.8%.

The U.S. and European Union continued to represent the regions with the most significant .org registrations, with Italy and Japan moving into the top ten during the first half of the year.

Currently organizations can choose between 22 top-level domains and a range of country codes when registering their domain names.

However, beginning next year, they will have the opportunity to fully customize their Web addresses with the introduction of new generic top-level domain names.