Domain Name Keeps Dropping — China’s .CN

Size of .cn registration base falls 75% from peak.

Thanks mostly to tighter controls and rules on registration, China’s .cn domain name count keeps falling.

As stated by data collected by HosterStats.com, there were regarding 3.5 million .cn domain names registered at the end of January.

That’s a far cry from the over 14 million .cn domain names that were registered at its peak in February 2009. At that point .cn had more registrations than any other country code top level domain.

In January 2010 China abruptly stopped overseas registrars from registering .cn domain names. This began a downward plummet in the number of domains registered.

Fresh regulations required anyone who wanted to register a domain to show identification. Then in June 2010 .cn domain name holders were asked to confirm their registrant information directly with the registry within 15 days or risk losing their domains.

.Cn was very popular prior to the restrictions for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it was offered for regarding 14 cents per registration.