Data Pipeline and Derivation Methodology

TLD Registry Monitor builds its reference catalog exclusively from authoritative primary sources: the IANA root zone database, audited monthly ICANN registry reports, bilateral registry agreements, and curated price filings.

1. Primary Ingestion

Every generic top-level domain contracted with ICANN is mandated by Specification 3 to submit monthly CSV reports. Our pipeline downloads these raw CSVs, verifies SHA256 checksums to guarantee idempotency, and stores unmodified source archives by date.

2. Multi-Schema Normalization

Over the past two decades, ICANN report column structures have undergone multiple revisions. Our parser dynamically identifies the schema fingerprint of each CSV file, mapping historical legacy headers to canonical database fields while preserving exact raw totals.

3. Mathematical Derivations

Month over Month Growth (MoM): Percentage difference between active domains at month $M$ and prior month $M-1$.
Year over Year Growth (YoY): Percentage difference between active domains at month $M$ and month $M-12$.
Monthly Delete Rate: Total purged deletions divided by starting base plus new additions.
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI): Sum of squared registrar market share percentages, assessing retail concentration.

4. Country Code TLD Policy

Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) operate under sovereign national authority and do not file ICANN monthly reports. We report official IANA root zone facts and never fabricate or extrapolate registration counts.