The number of China's ".cn" domain names has reached 1.09 million, according to a survey released yesterday.

About 660,000 ".cn" domain names were registered in China last year, an increase of 153.9 per cent over the previous year, according to the survey issued by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC).

"It means that ".cn" domain names have surpassed other domain names, such as ".com" and ".net" as the top option for Chinese users," CNNIC engineer Wang Enhai said yesterday.

The ".cn" suffix is the only domain name totally registered and governed in China.

Mao Wei, another official with CNNIC, said the growth was due to government support, improved services and a lower registration fee. Last year, the registration fee was lowered to the level of other domain names.

He predicted the number of ".cn" domain users would further increase this year as they planned to further reduce the fee.

By the end of 2005, the number of Internet users had increased to 111 million in China, second only to the United States. Some 58 per cent, or 64.3 million people, are broadband users.

Source:- http://english.people.com.cn/200601/18/eng20060118_236350.html

Will any of you be going out to buy .cn domain names?

Nope. They are still expensive and most of the good names are already gone. Also quite a few names in the dot coms don't really have a market in the China extension.

I truly don't understand the point of all the different endings of domains.

Originally Posted by jdprgm

I truly don't understand the point of all the different endings of domains.

The point is that the world is quite complex and its needs are too. .com extensions were meant for commercial business, .org for organizations and so on. But with the clamour for names continuing and the problem of cyber squatters continuing unabated, the need for newer extensions to cater to specific countries and their markets is the latest trend in the domain name industry. Hope that answers your question.

another good thing about having a bunch of different tlds is, for exaple, if you want somedomain.com and it isn't availible, you still might be able to get somedomain.org.

Or somedomain.golf... or somedomain.agent.. I hate the stupid pointless extensions like that. :-)

.org and all of the standard ones are fine, but I think they need to stop making new ones. It just confuses things after a while.

Besides, the Chinese government is pushing .cn domains because it's a lot easier to control their people with a single domain to track....:censored:

I own around 40 domains, and I won't develop or buy one if its not a .com or .net. All the other extensions are stupid, except if you have big money to spend on a .tv domain to make it internet TV. .WS is for....no clue? Anyone know what it means?

.de was good, .mobi will be crap, .travel has yet to become anything, .xxx would have been useful... TLD's are getting a tad out of control.

Too many of them. Remember .name? Or .eu? Or .museum? Those failed

i'd personally like to see a .off extension!