In the February 2006 survey we received responses from 76,184,000 sites, an increase of 933K from January's total. This month's survey finds different trends emerging in hostnames and active sites. Apache continues its strong growth with an increase of 1.3 million hostnames for the month, adding nearly a full point to its commanding market share lead. The active sites data shows a very different result, with Windows servers gaining 185K active sites, while Apache adds just 14K.

The split reflects increased volatility in the Web Server Survey in recent months following a lengthy period of market share stability. Factors include continuing site shifts at registrars and large domain "parking" operations. In recent months both Apache and Microsoft have seen sudden dips in hostname market share as huge blocks of bulk-registered domains expired at Zipa (December) and enom (November). This month there was a drop of 269K sites on Apache at Dotster as a clock of bulk-registered domains expired, which was offset by a surge in new domain registrations, which included 1.4 million new sites on Apache.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has made gains in hosting in Germany and Japan, two markets which traditionally have been dominated by Linux. Windows servers have gained substantial numbers of active sites at German host Intergenia and Excite Japan.