Internet Statistics
RIPE Region Hostcount: Label Explanation
AXFR Block - Hosts or Counted -
Duplicate - Empty - Huge -
Large - Level -
Medium - No Response
Zones - People / Host -
Population - Real or Real Hosts - Small - TLD -
WWW Sites - Zones
AXFR Block
A common reason for host failing to transfer a zone is
that one or all of the nameservers for the zone refuse the zone
transfer query. Since the accuracy of the hostcount is completely
dependent on being able to do as many zone transfers as possible, we
track how frequently this occurs.
Beware! This figure is not the number of zone
transfers which were blocked during the course of the hostcount! It's
the number of zones for which enabling zone transfers on one of
the servers would have meant we could have transferred the zone.
Examples. Suppose zone x.y.z is listed as being served by
nameservers A and B, then...
- if a zone transfer from A is successful, then we don't care
what B says, so x.y.z is not counted as AXFR blocked.
- if a zone transfer from A fails because A is a lame
delegation then x.y.z is not counted as AXFR blocked.
- if a zone transfer from A fails, and a zone transfer from
B fails because B is a lame delegation, then x.y.z
is counted as AXFR blocked.
- if zone transfers from A and B both fail, then
x.y.z is counted as AXFR blocked, but only once.
Counted
The number of hosts which were counted while traversing the DNS.
Duplicate
The number of hosts which were seen while traversing the DNS which had
already been seen elsewhere. This only applies within a particular
TLD.
Empty / Small / Medium / Large / Huge
These labels refer to a classification decided by the size of a zone,
where 'size' is determined by the number of hosts found in the zone.
The following table shows the cut-off points for the 5
classifications...
| Classification |
Hosts in Zone |
| Empty |
0 |
| Small |
1-10 |
| Medium |
11-100 |
| Large |
101-1000 |
| Huge |
1001+ |
Some examples... a figure like empty | zones | 50, indicates
that there were 50 zones found which contained no hosts. A combination
like large | hosts | 2900 indicates that 2900 hosts on average were found in zones with 101-1000
hosts. Level X
The level in the Domain Name tree which is being analysed. For
instance, data from Level 1 refers to one or more TLDs (depending
on where it appears). The hostcount software analyses all levels
which exist in the data. However, to make results more presentable the
numbers for all zones greater than level five are merged with the
totals for level 5, hence the label Level 5+.
No Response Zones
The number of zones which could not be transferred and analysed by
host. The particular reasons why host can
fail to transfer a zone vary. Common reasons are:
- connectivity problems, such as timeouts
- zone transfer restrictions by a nameserver for the zone
- lame delegation of the zone to a nameserver (i.e. a nameserver
listed as being authoritative for the zone does not seem to know
anything about the zone, or does not think it is authoritative).
People / Host
The number of people per real host for a given TLD.
Population
The estimated number of people living in the country represented by
this TLD, where applicable. The data is extracted from the
CIA world factbook and is revised each year.
Not all TLDs will have a corresponding population figure. Possible
reasons are
- no figures are available
e.g. gg (Guernsey).
- the geographic area corresponding to the TLD no longer exists
e.g. su (Soviet Union).
- the TLDs population is covered by another TLD
e.g. gb (Great Britain) is covered by uk (United
Kingdom), gg is possibly covered by uk.
Real or Real Hosts
The number of non-duplicate hosts. This is always obtained by
subtracting the duplicate hosts from the hosts
that were counted. TLD
TLD stands for Top Level Domain. The DNS tree is made up of
several generic TLDs like .com and lots of so-called
country code Top Level Domains (ccTLD), which in general
correspond to existing states or geographic areas in the real world.
ccTLDs are all designated by two letters and correspond, with a very
few exceptions, to the two-letter country codes of the
ISO 3166
standard. In the context of this hostcount, TLD refers to the
ccTLDs in the RIPE NCC
service area.
WWW Sites
This refers to address records counted of which the first label in
their domain name was www e.g. www.xxx.nl. The fast
majority of WWW sites have a domain name of this format, so this is a
fairly good indication of the number of web sites within a particular
TLD. Duplicates domain names are removed.
Two different names with the same address are counted as two WWW sites.
Zones
The total number of zones which were analysed, either at a
particular level of the Domain Name tree, of a particular size, for a
particular TLD or over all of the TLD's in the hostcount. Note that
zones which were encountered in an NS record but which could not be
retrieved via the DNS, for whatever reason, are not included.
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