Technology

Learn about our data collection process and limitations

WebHosting.Info employs several key technologies to generate comprehensive reports of unprecedented accuracy and quality by processing data collected using public domain tools and utilities. The data processing is based on various assumptions. These assumptions may lead to certain limitations in the report. Following are the assumptions and limitations of our process:

  • The entire data set currently consists of all COM, NET, ORG, BIZ and INFO Domain Names. This does not represent the worldwide total, since there are various ccTLDs and nTLDs which we have not yet covered. We assume the total of this dataset to be the entire dataset.
  • The clients of a Web Hosting company are identified as all Domains served by the name servers of that particular Company. This may however not be true in all cases. In certain instances the DNS provider maybe separate from the actual Hosting Company. In such a scenario, those domains will be counted towards the DNS provider and not the Hosting Company.
  • While our assignment process is extremely accurate, in a few rare cases we may have missed out on the name servers of a Hosting Company in which case the counts and statistics for those name servers may be missed out. However, this can easily be rectified by that hosting company by contacting us to get their name servers added. Therefore this inaccuracy will be neutralized quickly.
  • Currently, even domains that have been parked or forwarded are counted as Hosted domains. We will soon be differentiating between domains that are only registered, domains that are parked/forwarded, and domains that actually host a unique website. This will reflect accurately the count of hosted clients and exclude the parked/forwarded clients.
  • The current Web Hosting company rank is simply based on the total domains count. Since we do not have a differentiation between Hosted and non-Hosted domains yet, these total counts sometimes result in skewed rankings.
  • A few domains have multiple name servers belonging to more than one Company. In this rare situation, the client is assigned to one of the companies at random since it is not possible to directly determine which company the domain is hosted with.
  • Wherever we mention Country in the report, we are referring to Country of the Hosting Company/Registrar and NOT Country of the Domain Name owner. For instance a client in Australia maybe hosted with a Hosting Company in India, and the servers may actually be in the United States. There are three countries here. The country of the client, the country of the Hosting company, and the country of the Datacenter. In our reports, Country refers to Country of the Hosting Company unless specified otherwise.

These, and variations of these may lead to minor inaccuracies in the reports. What is more important however are the processes we have put in place to remove these inaccuracies overtime, with assistance and contribution from readers such as yourself.

If you do find any inaccuracies or any other issues with our data/reports, please email us at [email protected] and we will attempt to rectify the same at the earliest.