Technology
Local Web addresses increase six percent
Friday December 29 2023
The Communications Authority of Kenya headquarters in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG
The number of registered Kenyan domains grew by 5,659 during the 12-month period to September, representing a 5.7 percent rise to hit 104,321, effectively reversing the decline linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that the registrations grew from 98,662 by September 2022 as the sector recovered following the opening up of the economy from the pandemic-related lockdowns.
The disclosure, contained in the CA quarterly report for the three-month period to September, points 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.
Read: Kenya domain registration up 5.8pc, hits record high
The numbers, however, dipped in 2021.
During the quarter to September, companies recorded the highest number of applications at 90,721, representing 87 percent of all registrations, followed by second-level users (4,900), personal websites (3,690), not-for-profit organisations (1,968), institutions of higher learning (1,119) and lower and middle-level institutions (995).
Others were government institutions (700), blogs (147), network devices (48) as well as mobile content (33).
Geoffrey Shimanyula, the immediate former chairman of the 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 does happen 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 in January.
“So, our biggest challenge has been to renew these domains. Out of all the dot-ke domains registered as of now, we have around 80 percent active websites.”
Read: Cyber threats scare Kenyan startups from digital trade
Domain variants
KeNIC took charge of the dot-ke domain in 2002 when it had less 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.
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