In the July 2005 survey we received responses from 67,571,581 sites. The gain of 2.76 million hostnames from June is the second-largest monthly increase in the history of our survey, as 2005 continues to shape up as a historic year for Internet growth. The only larger gain was a 3.3 million hostname increase in March 2003, which ended months of stagnation and kicked off 30 consecutive months of positive growth for the Web.

Factors in the dramatic growth include:

• Increasing use of the Internet by small businesses as web sites and online storefronts become more affordable.
• The explosive growth of weblogs, a growing number of which are purchasing domains for branding purposes.
• Speculation in the market for domain names, buoyed by rising resale prices and the ability to generate revenue via pay-per-click advertising on parked domains.
• Strong sales of online advertising, especially keyword-based contextual ads that support business models for both domain parking and commercial weblogs.

The Internet has added 10.7 million hostnames in the first seven months of the year. Barring a dramatic slowdown, 2005 should easily exceed the record growth of 16 million hostnames in 2000.