Orange County ranks prominently in the most recent domain name statistics released by Network Solutions, the wholesaler and keeper of domain names (.com, .org, .net).
For the month of January, Orange County ranked fifth among the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas for domain name registry. It beat out areas such as No. 7 San Francisco and No. 9, Seattle. The Los Angeles/Long Beach area came in first, followed by New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago.
In 1998 and 1999, OC ranked 10th for metro area domain name registrations per capita. No. 1 was San Francisco. California came in first in 1998 and 1999 among the top 25 states registering domain names, and second in 1998 and 1999 on a per capita basis.
Nationwide, the top 10 registrars of domain names in terms of occupation, organization or industry segments for January (starting from No. 1) were: Attorneys, real estate, churches, computer software, insurance, Internet services, restaurants, computer system designers and consultants and computer and equipment dealers. Of the first-time domain name buyers, the top five listings were: Photographers, attorneys, real estate, churches and insurance. The percentage of registrations broken down by type were: .com (commercial) 78% ; .org (organization) 8%; and .net (network) 14%. Companies registered 85.5% of the domain names; consumers 14.2%. Businesses with one to four employees registered 75.5% of the .com domain names, while those with five employees or more registered 4% or less.
,Sherri Cruz
