Analysis: 9% of Top 500 Websites Registered With GoDaddy, 22% With MarkMonitor

I did some research today on domain registrar distribution across the Alexa Top 500. My original intention was to see how deep GoDaddy’s tentacles run among the internet’s most popular sites. The results were a little unexpected, however.

Take a look at this chart:

MarkMonitor, a brand protection service that deals largely in domains, accounts for a whopping 22% or 111 of the top 500 websites in the world. Some of the largest internet corporations, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft rely on MarkMonitor for their domain protection.

One thing to note though: the numbers are a little inflated due to the large number of Google sites (27) in the top 500, all of which are registered through MarkMonitor.

Incidentally, I emailed MarkMonitor to learn more about its stance on SOPA. Here’s the response I received:

We believe that brand owners, consumers and those who create digital content deserve protection from online criminals and pirates.  We also believe that any legislation must maximize protection of intellectual property rights and consumer safety while minimizing the risk of interfering with the benefits of an open and free Internet.

Considering MarkMonitor’s primary clientele, this stance isn’t surprising; it must concur with that of the corporations it represents.

GoDaddy and Network Solutions both account for around 9% each (46 and 45 domains, respectively) of the websites in the Alexa top 500. I was expecting to see a greater share for GoDaddy, but the large number of foreign (especially Chinese) websites and major brands in the top 500 ensure that GoDaddy’s footprint is relatively low.

CSC Corporate Domains counts some major corporations among its clients as well. WSJ.com, Reddit.com, Groupon, WashingtonPost, etc. are all registered through this registrar.

Net.cn is the biggest registrar for Chinese sites, accounting for 3% of the top 500. Major Chinese players, such as Youku.com, QQ.com, RenRen.com are registered with Net.cn

In the Alexa Top 100, the ubiquity of major sites and big corporations (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) increases MarkMonitor’s overall share. Here’s a chart:

In the top 100, 36 websites are registered through MarkMonitor, while GoDaddy’s share is a low 7%

At the bottom of the Alexa top 500 (400-500 ranks), MarkMonitor still remains the single largest registrar but its share drops by half, while GoDaddy’s increases by 5%:

This can be attributed to the greater share of (relatively) smaller, country-specific websites dominating the bottom 100 ranks.

Fun fact: Many adult websites in the top 500 are registered with EuroDNS. Why? My guess is as good as yours, but I suspect this has to do with the fact that it is based out of Luxembourg where, presumably, copyright laws might be a bit more lax. This might also be the reason why many file-sharing websites are with this registrar as well. Here’s a list:

The original target of this bit of analysis was GoDaddy. Despite the anti-GoDaddy, anti-SOPA movement spearheaded by Reddit, 46 of the top 500 websites in the world are still registered with GoDaddy, including WikiPedia, StackOverflow, Skype, Digg, Mashable, and GitHub. Asking these largely tech and geek-oriented websites to switch to a SOPA-opposing registrar may be a little naïve, but it would be nice if they all do this as a gesture. How amazing would it be to find not a single website registered with that horribly lime green, sexist monstrosity?!

[Notes: by ‘top 500 websites’, I refer to the list published by Alexa. These aren’t actually the top 500 websites in the world since Alexa’s figures can be ridiculously off. This list is more for illustrative purposes.

‘Other’ refers either to single registrars that couldn’t possibly be shown on the chart, or websites that do not have complete registrar data available in the WHOIS. This happens a lot with country code extensions.]