June 14, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Internet research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com) released its Web Hosting Provider Switching Analysis, identifying 1&1 Internet (oneandone.co.uk) as the largest Web host, with more than 5 million Web-facing hostnames, while it shows Go Daddy (godaddy.com) gaining on the leader, with more than 4 million hostnames. The survey shows Yahoo! and EV1Servers each surpassing the 1 million hostname mark.
1&1 Internet has been the largest host since Netcraft?s switching analysis was launched in 2002, but Go Daddy has lessened the gap, adding a million hostnames since January. 1&1 passed the 4 million site mark in July 2004, but has taken 11 months to register another million hostnames.
The two companies’ operations, however, are significantly different. 1&1 is a large based hosting operation that includes shared and domain registration, while Go Daddy’s primary marketing plan is to sell as many domains as it can, then up-sell shared hosting or dedicated servers to its domain customers.
The Planet lost some numbers when domain parking service RentalQueue moved from The Planet to Sago Networks, transferring 220,000 hostnames to the new provider. RentalQueue places pay-per-click advertising on parked domains, dividing the revenue with domain owners.
