How many TLDs does the census cover?

TLDs parsed: how it is measured

It comes from the existence pass, which unions three source feeds (zone files, DNS measurement data and web crawl data), removes the names that do not exist and the wildcard phantoms, and records which of the scanned domains could be graded. Every domain in the census is measured directly and counted once.

Coverage is counted in top-level domains that appear in the scanned universe. A TLD enters this number when at least one source feed carried names under it that survived the existence pass.

The figure is an absolute count of domains rather than a sample scaled up. A domain the census could not decide on is left out rather than estimated.

It moves when the source feeds change, when domains lapse or are registered, and when a domain that was unreachable last edition starts answering. The number is recomputed from the raw evidence at every edition. What it cannot tell you is where one particular domain stands: for that, see how the domains were counted.

the full grading methodology · the underlying dataset, published open with the counts behind every percentage. If a figure here disagrees with one elsewhere on the site, the dataset is canonical and we would like to know.

TLDs parsed: how to cite it

Please cite Defaults.Exposed and link this page. The citation below carries the date.

Defaults.Exposed, "How many TLDs does the census cover?" (as of October 12, 2026). https://defaults.exposed/stats/how-many-tlds-does-the-census-cover

Permalink: https://defaults.exposed/stats/how-many-tlds-does-the-census-cover · Machine-readable: /stats/s/tld-count.json · Licence: open data

Methodology: how we grade the internet · Source data: census data and downloads. Updated with each census edition.