Interesting Facts About Domain Names

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Interesting Facts About Domain Names

By CircleID Reporter
April 04, 2006 Views: 21,448 Add Comment

During a database testing, Dennis Forbes makes use of the .com zone file as data sample but he also stumbles upon some unexpected domain name discoveries which he has reported on his site. Dennis Forbes explains:

“I recently had a need for a mid-sized amount of real-world data, which I required for testing purposes on low-end hardware (testing and demonstrating some of the new functionality of SQL Server 2005). I wanted something that wasn’t confidential, which excluded the easy choice of using business data, and I refrain from using artificial data. Around the same time I happened across the requisition process for the .COM/.NET and .EDU TLD zones, so I made a request for access.

Soon enough I had the 3.5GB of .COM domain names, along with 650MB of .NET, loaded into the database (although for all results in this entry I only included the .COM TLD, for the data as of 2pm on March 28th, 2006. I’ll analyze the other ones at a future date). It was a great foundation for a lot of tests and demonstrations, and served my original goal admirably. I didn’t stop there, however; curiosity led me to do some basic analysis to see what sorts of domain names are registered, and how saturated the registry really is.”

Dennis Forbes’ findings are documented here.

By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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