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  1. Network Solutions Enters Hosting With Free Domain Offer

    In a break with past practice, Network Solutions this week began offering free domain names to web hosting customers, a sign of the growing importance of shared hosting in the company's small business strategy. "We are using a free domain as a marketing device," said Champ Mitchell, chairman and CEO of Network Solutions. "That's new for us, and this is a big change for Network Solutions."

    While many registrars offer domains for less than $8 a year, Network Solutions sells .com names for $34.99 a year. The company is bundling a free domain with one-year signups for new web hosting plans, which range from $9.96 to $29 a month. NetSol is following the lead of registrar competitors Go Daddy and eNom, which each expanded into shared hosting in 2003, prompting hosting companies to slash domain prices.

    Network Solutions has begun growing again after years of decline. But the vast majority of its 1.4 million hostnames are parked domains and one-page template sites. Since January 2004, NetSol's active sites - those containing multi-page content - have grown from just 406 to 17,200 this month. The company sees its new hosting packages as the key to moving to the next level.

    Hostname Growth at Network Solutions

    (more...)

    Posted by Rich Miller on 4th March, 2005 in Hosting Share

  2. March 2005 Web Server Survey Finds 60 Million Sites

    We now find more than 60 million web sites on the Internet, as the March 2005 survey received http responses from 60,442,655 sites.

    The milestone comes just nine months after the survey crossed the 50-million mark in May 2004, as the growth of the Web continues to accelerate, approaching the dizzying pace of the height of the Internet boom. During the year 2000, the number of sites found by the Netcraft survey doubled from 10 million to 20 million in just seven months. More recently, it took 13 months for the Web to grow from 40 million to 50 million sites.

    This month's gain of 1.34 million sites was the largest since April of last year (+1.7 million) and marked the 25th consecutive month of growth for the Web after a two-year shakeout to absorb the collapse of the dot-com and telecom industries.

    Apache continued to take market share from Microsoft servers, gaining nearly 0.7 percent last month after gains the previous two months. After little or no change in server market share during 2004, Apache has widened its margin by 2.0 percent thus far in 2005.

    Total Sites Across All Domains August 1995 - March 2005

    Total Sites Across All Domains, August 1995 - March 2005

    Market Share for Top Servers Across All Domains August 1995 - March 2005

    Graph of market share for top servers across all domains, August 1995 - March 2005

    Top Developers
    DeveloperFebruary 2005PercentMarch 2005PercentChange
    Apache4068114068.834181922969.190.36
    Microsoft1232211120.851242006820.55-0.30
    Sun18357183.1118362753.04-0.07
    Zeus6185991.056108191.01-0.04

    (more...)

    Posted by Netcraft on 1st March, 2005 in Web Server Survey Share

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