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Who Runs the .com Internet? Top DNS Providers

NameDaemon — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The top DNS providers of .com are GoDaddy, with 21.66% of names, and Cloudflare, with 12.94%. Together they run about a third of the zone. We counted all 167 million names on 8 October 2026, each under the provider of its first nameserver.

Who are the top DNS providers in .com?

A DNS provider runs the nameservers that tell the world where a name points. Every name in the .com zone lists at least one. We grouped the names by the company behind that nameserver.

Rank	Provider	Names	Share of the zone
1	GoDaddy	36,254,891	21.66%
2	Cloudflare	21,649,792	12.94%
3	Google Domains	7,831,569	4.68%
4	Namecheap	6,126,924	3.66%
5	dns-parking.com	5,217,859	3.12%
6	Afternic (GoDaddy marketplace)	5,044,711	3.01%
7	Wix	4,826,924	2.88%
8	NameBright	3,521,223	2.10%
9	Alibaba Cloud (HiChina)	2,713,056	1.62%
10	Amazon Route 53	2,323,462	1.39%

The top 15 providers run about 62% of all names. However, a long tail of thousands of smaller providers runs the rest. Our State of .com page keeps the full ranking and updates it daily.

How concentrated are the top DNS providers?

The top two providers alone run about 35% of the zone. That is a large share for a system built to spread the load. The reason is simple: most people do not choose a DNS provider. Their registrar or web host does it for them.

GoDaddy leads because it is also one of the largest registrars. Cloudflare is different. Many owners pick it on purpose, for speed and for its free plan. So the first place reflects habit, and the second reflects choice.

What parking and marketplace names do

Some entries in the table are not ordinary hosts. The provider dns-parking.com looks like a parking service, and Afternic is a marketplace for names that are for sale. Together they run about 6% of all names.

A parked name points to a page that shows ads or a "for sale" notice. These names do not have a real website. So the real share of working sites is lower than the raw ranking suggests.

Why the top DNS providers matter

DNS is a quiet point of failure. If a big provider has an outage, millions of names can stop resolving at the same time. That has happened to large providers in the past, and it will happen again.

Concentration also affects safety and choice. A single account that holds your name, site and DNS is easier to attack. Many owners now keep their DNS at a separate provider as a backup. Our post on registrar vs web host vs DNS provider shows how to split the jobs.

How to find the provider of any name

You do not have to guess. The Hosting Stats tool shows the market share of providers and looks up the DNS provider of any name. The Domain Health Check lists the nameservers of a name along with its email records.

Remember that the DNS provider is often, but not always, the registrar or the web host. It tells you who answers the DNS question, not who stores the website. For the numbers about the zone itself, read how many .com domains there are.

What this ranking cannot tell you

A ranking by nameserver has limits. First, we count each name once, under its first nameserver. A name that uses two providers shows up under only one. Second, the label is a best guess for well-known providers, and unknown ones show their raw name.

Also, DNS is not hosting. A name can use one company for DNS and another for its website. So this table shows who answers the DNS question, not who stores the pages. Use it as a map of who sits in the middle of .com, and nothing more.

What to remember

A few companies run a large part of .com DNS, and most owners never chose them. Know who runs yours, and keep a copy of your records. Verisign, which runs the registry, publishes the zone every day, as its page on .com explains. The providers in this table do the work that makes each name answer.

Originally published at namedaemon.com/blog/top-dns-providers-who-runs-the-com-internet/. NameDaemon has 18 free tools for .com names, built on the daily zone file, and the numbers are on the State of .com page.

SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC: What Each One Does published: false

NameDaemon — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC comparison, SPF lists who may send your email, DKIM signs each message, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when a check fails. You need all three. Together they stop others from faking your domain and help your mail reach the inbox.

SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC at a glance

Each record answers a different question. The table shows them side by side. After it, we explain each one in plain words.

Record	Question it answers	Where it lives
SPF	Is this server allowed to send for the domain?	A TXT record on the domain
DKIM	Did the domain really sign this message?	A TXT record under a selector name
DMARC	What should receivers do if SPF and DKIM fail?	A TXT record at _dmarc

What SPF does

An SPF record is a list of the servers that may send mail for your domain. A receiving server looks it up and checks the sender against it. The standard is RFC 7208.

A simple record looks like this: "v=spf1 include:_spf.example.com -all". The "-all" at the end says that no other server may send. A domain that sends no mail at all can say so with a record that allows nothing.

What DKIM does

DKIM adds a digital signature to each message. The sending system signs with a private key. The matching public key sits in your DNS, under a name that includes a label called a selector. Receivers use it to check that the message has not changed.

DKIM is defined in RFC 6376. Because the selector is chosen by the sender, an outside tool cannot always tell whether DKIM is set up. That is why most checkers can read SPF and DMARC but only hint at DKIM.

What DMARC does

DMARC sits on top of the other two. It says what to do with mail that fails the checks, and it asks receivers to send you reports. It is defined in RFC 7489.

A policy can be "none", "quarantine" or "reject". Under "none", receivers only report. Under "quarantine", they put failing mail in spam, and under "reject" they refuse it. The reports show who is sending mail in your name, which is very useful.

SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC: which do you need first?

You need all three, but the order matters. Start with the simplest and build up. Here is the path we suggest:

Set up SPF for every service that sends your mail.
Turn on DKIM in each of those services.
Add DMARC with the policy "none" and read the reports for a few weeks.
Move to "quarantine", and later to "reject", when the reports look clean.

Jumping straight to "reject" can block your own mail. So go step by step.

Why SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC matters to mailbox providers

Large mailbox providers now expect proper records. Google's sender guidelines ask bulk senders to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Even if you send little mail, the same records help your messages avoid the spam folder. So it pays to set them up now, while the list of senders is short.

They also protect your name. Without them, anyone can send mail that looks like it came from you. That is a common trick in phishing.

How to check your own records

You can look at your records in a minute. The Domain Health Check reads the SPF and DMARC records of a name, and it lists the expiry date and the lock status as well. It also shows if the name is on a blocklist.

Run it on your own name first, then on any name you plan to buy. A name with no email records is a warning sign. Our post on registrar vs web host vs DNS provider explains who holds the records. The DNS entry in the glossary covers the basics.

Also think about look-alike names. Criminals register names that resemble yours and send mail from them. SPF and DMARC on your own name do not stop that. The Lookalike Finder lists such names, so you can see which ones exist.

Originally published at namedaemon.com/blog/spf-vs-dkim-vs-dmarc-what-each-one-does/. NameDaemon has 18 free tools for .com names, built on the daily zone file, and the numbers are on the State of .com page.

How Many .com Domains Are There?

NameDaemon — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How many .com domains are there? On 8 October 2026 the .com zone held 167,343,624 names. That number comes from the daily zone file of the registry. It changes every day, so each figure here has its date.

How many .com domains are there today?

The answer depends on what you count. The most reliable public number is the size of the zone file. It lists every .com name that has nameservers, and the registry publishes it once a day.

On 8 October 2026 that list held 167,343,624 names. The day before, it held 167,280,184. So the zone grew by 63,440 names in one day. Our State of .com page updates these figures every day and keeps a 90-day history.

Quick math: 167 million names is about one .com for every 48 people on Earth.

Where does the number come from?

First, the registry runs the .com extension. Verisign does this job, and it publishes the zone file so that the internet can find every name. Approved users can ask for a copy through ICANN's Centralized Zone Data Service.

Then we read that file once a day. We count the names and compare them with the day before. Only totals and rankings go on our site. The list of names itself stays private, because the terms of the zone file do not allow us to pass it on.

Verisign also reports its own totals every quarter in the Domain Name Industry Brief. Those totals count registrations, so they can differ a little from the zone.

How we count it (for the curious)

The daily zone file is a plain list of names and their nameservers. We load it into a Parquet file and analyse it with DuckDB. A scan of all 167 million rows takes about five seconds. The same scan gives the length of names, the share with hyphens or digits, and the top DNS providers. Comparing today's file with yesterday's gives the names that appeared and the names that left.

How many .com domains are added and removed each day?

The zone changes in both directions every day. On 8 October 2026, 181,367 names appeared in the zone and 117,927 left it. The difference is the net growth of 63,440 names. Here are the last three days in our history:

Snapshot	Names in the zone	Appeared	Left
2026-10-06	167,226,216	not known	not known
2026-10-07	167,280,184	171,094	117,126
2026-10-08	167,343,624	181,367	117,927

Names appear when someone registers a new domain or gives an existing one nameservers. Names leave when a domain is deleted, expires or is put on hold. The zone cannot tell these cases apart. So a name that left the zone is not always free to register.

You can see what is about to drop in the Drop Calendar. For one name, the Availability Checker shows the live registry answer.

Why do the zone and the registrations differ?

A domain can be registered without nameservers. In that case it is not in the zone. It is also missing from the zone when the registry puts it on hold. That is why the zone is a little smaller than the number of registrations.

The reverse does not happen. A name in the zone is always a registered name. So the zone is a safe lower bound. It tells you that at least 167 million .com names exist.

Because of this gap, a name that is missing from the zone is not proof that the name is free. Only the live registry check can say that. You can read more about RDAP, the lookup that gives the live answer.

How many .com domains are still free?

Nobody can count the free ones, because the space of possible names is huge. A name can hold 63 characters, so there are far more possible names than any list could show. What you can do is check the names you care about.

Short names went first. Only about 0.03% of the names in the zone have three characters or fewer. Longer names, with two words, are where most of the choice is left. The guide to expired domains explains how names come back to the pool.

What the daily change tells you

Two numbers move every day: names that appear and names that leave. When more appear than leave, the zone grows. When more leave, it shrinks. So the net change shows which force is stronger on that day.

One day is only a snapshot. A pattern needs weeks of data, and we keep 90 days. Over time you can see if growth is steady or if it comes in waves. That is why each figure carries a date, and why we do not draw big conclusions from a single day.

How to use the number when you pick a name

A big number can scare you, but it should not stop you. Most of the 167 million names are not good brands, and most good names are still easy to find if you add a second word. Here are three quick steps:

Write ten ideas with the words your customers use.
Check all ten at once with the Availability Checker.
Score the free ones with the Domain Score and keep the best two.

Then check the best two on a registrar and register the one you like. It takes about ten minutes.

What to remember

The number is large, but it is not a limit. About 167 million .com names exist today, and about 60,000 more appear each day on average. Our history is short for now, so we will refine that average as the days pass.

Want a daily alert for the names that match your words? Deleted Domains shows the changes for one word. NameDaemon Pro sends them to you by email.