The number of registered Kenyan domains rose to a record high of 115,653 as at the close of September, up from 111,313 three months earlier, new data shows.
The quarterly statistics, from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), show that the increase translated to 4,340 additional registrations, marking a 3.9 percent jump that elevated the dot-ke domain totals to their highest level within Kenya’s officially administered national registry.
The CA dataset groups dot-ke domains into categories covering companies, personal websites, non-profit organisations, and academic institutions. Others are government institutions, information services, second-level users, and mobile content registrations.
“The total number of users registered under the .KE domain increased by 3.9 percent, to 115,653 from 111,313 recorded in the previous quarter,” wrote the authority in its latest statistical release.
The disclosures point to sustained growth in the number of registrations recorded since 2018, when they stood at 85,744, before hitting a high of 101,123 in 2020 when companies embraced digital platforms in the wake of Covid-19 restrictions.
In the quarter under review, companies recorded the highest number of registrations at 102,741, followed by personal websites (7,144), not-for-profit organisations (2,082), institutions of higher learning (1,420), and lower and middle-level institutions (1,018). Others were government institutions (879), second-level users (209), blogs (135), and mobile content (25).
Mr Geoffrey Shimanyula, former chairman of Kenya Network Information Centre (KeNIC), the agency that handles registrations and issuance of the dot-ke domain, said in a past interview that what appears as a sluggish uptake is a product of users preferring to register for short-term use.
“It’s not that we haven’t grown, what happens in this business is that people register a domain name for a specific purpose and when that purpose ends, they forget about it,” said Mr Shimanyula at the time.
“So, our biggest challenge has been to renew these domains. Out of all the dot-ke domains registered, we have around 80 percent active websites.”
KeNIC took charge of the dot-ke domain in 2002 when it had fewer than 1,000 registrations, taking over from Shem Ochuodho from Kenya and Randy Bush from America, who previously served as the administrators.
The domain is available for use in variants known as second-level names that include .co.ke for companies; .ac.ke (higher learning institutions); .sc.ke (lower and middle colleges); and .or.ke (non-profit organisations).
Others are .me.ke (personal names); .mobi.ke (mobile content); .go.ke (government agencies); .info.ke (information); and .ne.ke for network devices.
