New.net continues to gain traction for its domain registration service, which operates outside the traditional ICANN domain system. New.net added nearly 52K hostnames last month, marking its third consecutive month of strong percentage growth, as measured by our Hosting Provider Switching Analysis. The company now hosts more than 130K hostnames.

New.net domains (which include .shop, .xxx, .ltd and .mp3) aren't recognized by the centralized domain name system, but are accessible to customers of partner ISPs or those who have downloaded software enabling New.net domains. Other domain registrars - including BulkRegister and RegisterFly - are now reselling the new.net extensions at prices ranging from $17.99 to $20.99. New.net claims that 180 million Internet users worldwide are able to access sites using its domains.

NR Software had the largest single percentage jump last month, gaining 57K hostnames switching from LasVegas.net.

NR Software was one of three American software and/or systems integrators to record strong percentage growth in August, along with Solution Pro and Fikus Development. Other providers with strong percentage growth for August include Chinese service provider ChinaNetCom, and Momentous, a Canadian provider with several domain-related businesses, including three registrars and Pool.com, a domain auction service.

Netcraft's Hosting Provider Switching Analysis identifies movements of sites from one hosting provider to another on a monthly basis. Netcraft compares the hosting location of each site found by the Web Server Survey as indicated by the DNS with the equivalent information for the same site in the previous month. Analysing this information presents a unique bird’s eye view of the hosting industry, identifying winners who are able to take sites from other hosting companies, and persuade people developing new sites to host those sites with them.