Four early observations drawn from a stratified sample of 0 records. Coverage per TLD is capped at a 5,000-domain sample by design, so within-TLD percentages are estimates with a ±1.4% margin (95% CI), not exhaustive counts.
Across 0 records we've seen 0 distinct registrars, but the top three alone account for roughly 0% of all registrations. The largest single registrar, -, holds 0.0% by itself. Any research on registration behavior has to reckon with this long tail.
Despite being deployable for over a decade, DNSSEC delegation remains uncommon. Only a small fraction of domains in our sample set publish the secureDNS.delegationSigned flag. Adoption varies dramatically by TLD: some registries essentially require it, while most remain predominantly unsigned.
The oldest record we hold reads ?, registered . The newest is ? from . That spread, over three decades, is what makes a longitudinal lifecycle study meaningful in the first place.
TLD zone files publish NS records, delegations, not A records. Only a small fraction of domains have an A record in-zone, and only those yield ASN and hosting-country data through ip-api. To cover the hosting layer broadly requires live DNS resolution, not zone parsing. A deliberate limitation of the current pipeline, not a bug.
Second-level labels that appear under 3+ different TLDs in our sample. A rough proxy for defensive / brand-protection registrations, sometimes for campaign-style bulk buying. The colored chip on each row tells you which is which:
≥80% of registrations via one registrar. Single corporate footprint, Com Laude, MarkMonitor, CSC. Genuine brand-protection.
50–80% via one registrar. Some defensive registrations, the rest spread elsewhere, partial brand control.
<50% via one registrar. No single owner, opportunistic, contested, or many independent registrants sharing the name.
Hover any chip to see the dominant registrar, exact share, distinct registrar count, and HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, industry-standard concentration measure; 10 000 = monopoly, <2 500 = competitive).
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Earliest creation_date observed per TLD.
Day-of-week + hour-of-day registration rhythm.
Each TLD plotted by median creation year vs records.
Market share evolution across the leaders.
Adoption over time, by registrar, and by TLD: same signal, three slices.
Who applies clientTransferProhibited by default.
Bring-your-own nameservers vs SaaS DNS.
Live domains untouched in registrar records 3+ years.
NS published but the zone never resolves.
Where registrants prefer which TLDs.
Same name across many TLDs · classified defensive / mixed / dispersed by registrar concentration.
When domains were born, when they're created day-to-day, how each TLD's mix of new vs old looks, and how registrar leadership has shifted.
For every TLD, the earliest creation_date we observe on a currently-record. Legacy TLDs stretch back to the mid-80s; new-gTLDs cluster tightly in the 2014-2016 expansion.
Day-of-week and hour-of-day of creation_date across 0 records. Weekday bias and business-hour clustering tell you which segments are human-driven; flat patterns tell you the opposite.
One dot per TLD, x is median domain age, y is dataset volume (log scale), bubble size also tracks volume. TLDs in the top-right are old and big; bottom-left are young and small. Filter: ≥ 200 records.
DNSSEC, transfer locks, who runs their own DNS, and which records have gone quiet, the technical signature of how registrars and registrants actually run their domains.
DNSSEC adoption looks different depending on what you slice by. Over time tells you the trend. By registrar tells you who's pushing it. By TLD tells you which registries demand it.
DNSSEC-signed share of each birth-year cohort. Older cohorts were almost never signed at registration; recent cohorts reflect registrar defaults, which vary wildly.
Share of each registrar's domains carrying clientTransferProhibited , the registrar-side lock that stops unauthorized transfers. Near-100% means opt-out; low numbers mean opt-in. Filter: registrars with ≥ 200 records.
A nameserver like ns1.example.com sits inside the same SLD it serves, the operator runs their own DNS. Everything else points at a managed provider. Mixed means some of each.
Domains whose RDAP updated_date hasn't moved in 3+ years and whose expiry_date is still in the future. The field tracks registrar-side record updates (nameserver change, transfer, DNSSEC toggle, contact rewrite), so this is a proxy for "no admin activity in years", not a guarantee that the registrant is gone.
0 of 0 records have updated_date older than 3 years and a future expiry.
(no sample available)
Registration exists, RDAP returns cleanly, but the domain isn't actually serving anything , inactive status, no delegation, or on hold. These are the zombie entries in the namespace.
Where in the world the registrants register from, and the names that show up under many extensions at once, two different angles on the same registrant-side question.
Top 10 TLDs × top 10 registrant-country codes (clean ISO-3166 alpha-2 only). Darker cells = more domains. Reveals which TLDs are popular with registrants from which jurisdictions.
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