If you think of a domain name registrar, the name GoDaddy is likely to come into your head above all others. They are at the top of the pile, responsible for managing over 53 million domain names by the end of 2024. When you consider that the next position on the list is held by Newfold Digital, with over 11 million domain names under management, you can see how far ahead GoDaddy is when compared to the competition.
So, it may come as a slight surprise to learn that GoDaddy registered fewer .com domains to finish 2024 than it did the year before. Notably, it fell below 600k registrations for that month – something that hasn’t happened in years, if at all.
Looking at the bigger picture
Is this worrying? It doesn’t seem to be. GoDaddy did hit over 630,000 registrations for dot com domains in December 2023. Fast forward one year and the number dropped to just over 583,000 domains. If this drop was only attributable to GoDaddy, it might be a concern, but that wasn’t the case. Gname, sitting at sixth position on the list, registered over 132,000 dot com domains to finish the year, down roughly 10,000 from the previous December.
It’s clear that GoDaddy is still registering plenty of new domains, at least the .com ones. Sure, there was a drop in December, but this would only be of any concern if the drop continued in the months to come. I’ll be checking the figures to see whether 2025 might produce some more surprises, but domain name registrations can rise or fall depending on a wide range of factors. The picture of a single month compared to the previous year doesn’t reveal too much.
Did all registrars experience something similar?
No – the data shows that some companies did do better. Namecheap, ranking as second on the list in terms of the number of .com registrations in the last month of the year, rose considerably from the previous year. They registered over 352,000 in December 2024, a rise from over 298,000 in December 2023.
I also noticed that Alibaba, at ninth position on the overall list of top registrars for .com registrations, didn’t feature in the top ten for registrations for December 2024. So, while GoDaddy did indeed drop below the 600k mark, this may be nothing more than a blip. It could be something we never see again – at least not for a while – and it hasn’t dented GoDaddy’s position in terms of the total .com registrations it handles.
We can expect some jostling when it comes to the positioning of these domain name registrars over time. The drop experienced by GoDaddy to finish 2024 may not mean much when you consider the volume of registrations that they did bring in. I’ll be watching to see whether this is the beginning of a prolonged pattern, or nothing more than an odd blip to finish the year. We’ll see how 2025 pans out for the company.