The US has long held a dominating position in the web hosting industry. One way to examine this is to look at which DNS servers hold the most domain names. It turns out that 16 of the 20 largest DNS servers in the world are located in the US. Aside from the US, only Germany and China have any DNS servers with enough domain names to place in the global DNS top 20. Together, these 20 DNS servers have 32% of the world’s domain names (based on the .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info TLDs).

Even inside the US the distribution is uneven. There is a clear concentration of DNS server locations along the east and west coast compared to the rest of the country.

Center of

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1. secureserver.net

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2. name-services.com

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2. name-services.com

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3. Yahoo.com

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4. worldnic.com

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5. 1and1.com

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6. register.com

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7. sedoparking.com

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8. dnsnameserver.org

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9. fabulous.com

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10. buydomains.com

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10. buydomains.com

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10. buydomains.com

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11. anondns.org

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12. dsredirection.com

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13. schlund.de

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14. xinnetdns.com

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15. parked.com

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16. proredirect.com

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17. ipowerweb.net

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17. ipowerweb.net

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18. dreamhost.com

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18. dreamhost.com

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19. maltuzi.com

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20. hichina.com

Above: All the locations for the 20 largest DNS servers are marked on this Google map.

One reason for the US dominance is that its internet infrastructure has had more time to evolve compared to the rest of the world. Another, less obvious, reason could be that the US web hosting industry has had more time to consolidate and thanks to this has more large players on the market. On top of this, it’s common for non-US companies and individuals to host their websites in the US. They do this both for the often more reliable infrastructure and perhaps more importantly to take advantage of the lower price levels offered by US hosting companies.

It’s interesting to note that some of the DNS servers on the list belong to companies that are not in the web hosting or domain registrar business at all, but are instead focused on domain speculation, i.e. the selling and purchasing of domain names much like real estate. Sedo is perhaps the most famous example. Domain speculation has obviously become very big business.

Historically speaking, the US has had a large head start on the internet compared to the rest of the world. Though the US internet dominance has somewhat lessened, it’s clear that the country is still in a league of its own.

List of the top 20 DNS servers

Note that we have listed the “DNS server domains” instead of the actual DNS servers. This includes all DNS servers using that domain (normally two servers or more). For example, fabulous.com stands for the DNS servers ns1.fabulous.com and ns2.fabulous.com.

1. secureserver.net, 10,590,591 domain names, owner: Wild West Domains Inc.
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

2. name-services.com, 2,840,123 domain names, owner: eNom, Inc.
Bellevue, Washington, USA
Redmond, Washington, USA

3. yahoo.com, 2,319,962 domain names, owner: Yahoo! Inc.
Sunnyvale, California, USA

4. worldnic.com, 2,278,870 domain names, owner: Network Solutions, LLC
Herndon, Virginia, USA

5. 1and1.com, 1,627,835 domain names, owner: 1&1 Internet Inc.
Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA

6. register.com, 1,582,611 domain names, owner: Register.Com, Inc.
New York, New York, USA

7. sedoparking.com, 1,148,234 domain names, owner: Sedo LLC
Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

8. dnsnameserver.org, 815,222 domain names, owner: New.net Incorporated
Pasadena, California, USA

9. fabulous.com, 780,773 domain names, owner: DBS Administration Pty. Ltd.
Cary, North Carolina, USA

10. buydomains.com, 744,071 domain names, owner: BuyDomains Holdings, Inc.
San Diego, California, USA
Centreville, Virginia, USA
Waltham, Massachusetts, USA

11. anondns.org, 554,059 domain names, owner: Unknown (Registered anonymously)
Frisco, Texas, USA

12. dsredirection.com, 524,364 domain names, owner: Oversee.net
Los Angeles, California, USA

13. schlund.de, 513,375 domain names, owner: Schlund+Partner AG
Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

14. xinnetdns.com, 502,782 domain names, owner: XinNet Technology Corp.
Beijing, China

15. parked.com, 478,644 domain names, owner: Parked.com, LLC
Columbus, Ohio, USA

16. proredirect.com, 468,751 domain names, owner: Oversee.net
Los Angeles, California, USA

17. ipowerweb.net, 466,383 domain names, owner: iPowerWeb, Inc.
Lakewood, California, USA
Phoenix, Arizona, USA

18. dreamhost.com, 458,683 domain names, owner: DreamHost WebHosting
San Francisco, California, USA
Brea, California, USA

19. maltuzi.com, 429,922 domain names, owner: Maltuzi LLC
Los Angeles, California, USA

20. hichina.com, 403,330 domain names, owner: HiChina Zhicheng Technology Ltd.
Beijing, China

DNS server and domain name data source:

Ipwalk, April 18, 2007. The data from Ipwalk is based on the .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info TLDs.

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