This report details the names and locations of all DNS servers on the internet, as well as the number of domains that are serviced by these servers. In this fashion, we can discover

• the number of sites hosted by ISPs
• the number of sites hosted by hosting companies that use an ISP's facilities, but run their own name servers
• the number of sites hosted by specialty DNS service providers
• the organizations that choose to operate their own DNS servers rather than to use those of their ISP/hosting provider.

The survey works by determining each month the authoritative name server for each host (and more accurately, each domain) in our survey. We then count the number of domains hosted on each DNS server.

Search

Curious about the size of a the domain set handled by a particular ISP's name servers? Try searching for the ISP's name server. For example, to find Exodus' name servers, try exodus.

Top 20 by Host Name

The top 20 name servers ranked according to the number of domains handled by each name server, with a name server uniquely identified by its fully qualifed name, are shown below.

Name Server Name	Name Server IP	Domains
dns3.name-services.com	63.251.92.193	127,609
dns4.name-services.com	64.74.96.242	127,602
dns2.name-services.com	216.52.184.230	127,582
dns1.name-services.com	69.25.142.1	127,581
dns5.name-services.com	212.118.243.118	127,573
yns2.yahoo.com	216.109.116.20	83,855
yns1.yahoo.com	66.218.71.205	83,855
ns8.san.yahoo.com	66.218.71.205	82,873
ns9.san.yahoo.com	216.109.116.20	82,872
ns1.ipowerweb.net	64.70.61.130	66,868
dns.technorail.com	62.149.128.2	66,136
dns2.technorail.com	62.149.132.2	66,135
ns2.ipowerweb.net	66.235.217.200	64,310
ns.xinnet.cn	202.106.124.194	62,000
ns.xinnetdns.com	210.51.170.66	61,974
ns1.livedns.co.uk	213.171.192.250	60,822
ns2.livedns.co.uk	213.171.193.250	60,818
wsc2.jomax.net	64.202.167.50	59,772
wsc1.jomax.net	64.202.165.4	59,766
ns1.ipowerdns.com	66.235.217.202	58,401

Survey Limitations

Our survey, while having an impressive 17,949,167 sites and 11,115,860 domains in the data set, does not include all web sites and domains. We only include those that we consider active, which, by our definition, means we found the site via a link from somewhere else. Sites not linked by anyone are by definition not included in the survey.

We also actively drop sites out of the survey that fail to respond 3 consecutive months to our HTTP queries. So, while a DNS server might still respond with information for a domain, if there is no active web site that we can reach for the domain in question, then the domain is not included in this survey at all, even if it still has other functioning services (such as email).