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	142,342
dns2.name-services.com	216.52.184.230	142,341
dns1.name-services.com	69.25.142.1	142,339
dns4.name-services.com	64.74.96.242	142,321
dns5.name-services.com	70.42.37.1	142,309
yns1.yahoo.com	66.218.71.205	100,540
yns2.yahoo.com	216.109.116.20	100,538
ns8.san.yahoo.com	66.218.71.205	98,249
ns9.san.yahoo.com	216.109.116.20	98,248
dns2.technorail.com	62.149.132.2	83,786
dns.technorail.com	62.149.128.2	83,785
ns.xinnetdns.com	210.51.170.66	78,699
ns.xinnet.cn	210.51.171.209	78,693
ns1.ipowerweb.net	64.70.61.130	77,087
wsc1.jomax.net	64.202.165.4	75,325
wsc2.jomax.net	64.202.167.50	75,315
ns2.ipowerweb.net	66.235.217.200	74,741
ns1.ipowerdns.com	66.235.217.202	69,098
ns1.livedns.co.uk	213.171.192.250	68,999
ns2.livedns.co.uk	213.171.193.250	68,991

Survey Limitations

Our survey, while having an impressive 21,881,062 sites and 12,747,920 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).