According to the stats provided at HosterStats, the .ME domain saw a 17,807 net monthly increase in domain names registered with a total count of 497,625 domains as of May 1. Looking back over the month to month increases since the launch of the .ME domain in the summer of 2008, this increase in registrations in April would be the largest since that time. While many TLDs are seeing only modest growth and some showing monthly declines, .ME has been demonstrating phenomenal growth particularly in the past few months with April seeing record additions. This shows that the .ME domain continues to gain more and more traction as it’s popularity particularly among startups is helping to boost its profile and attracting ever increasing attention. We anticipate that this trend will only grow stronger in the months to come as more web businesses adopt the .ME extension.

Data from HosterStats domain name counts

According to data from HosterStats.com, as of March 1, 2011, there was a total of 465,905 .ME domain names registered. The number of .ME domain name registrations has been steadily growing since its launch in 2008. More recently, the total domain name registration numbers for the .ME domain have seen significant month to month growth. From January 1, 2011 to February 1, 2011, total registrations increased by 16,800 and from February 1, 2011 to March 1, 2011, they were up by almost 15,700. In the 12 months from March 1, 2010 to March 1, 2011, .ME domain name registrations were up by over 99,000, an increase of 27%.

We anticipate that the number of registrations will continue to climb higher as the .ME domain benefits from the all the publicity being generated by the many new popular websites that have been developed on .ME domain names in recent months.

The data for this post is from HosterStats.com domain name registration counts.

The following is a list of some of the major domain registrars offering .ME domain names:

Name.com

Blacknight

Go Daddy

DomainMonster.com

MyDomain

Dotster

MeNet.me

The .ME Registry has a complete list of the accredited registrars for .ME domain names.

.ME accredited registrars list

We attempted to register some .ME domain names through 123-reg.co.uk and found that the price displayed for us once we entered our contact information was not £1.99 but £13.69. So, it would seem that this offer does not apply to US residents and perhaps is limited only to residents of the UK.

Given this information, it would seem that for US residents the two registrars offering what we found to be the best deals are Go Daddy at $8.99 a .ME domain name plus free whois privacy with the purchase of 5 or more names and DomainMonster. DomainMonster is running a promotion for $6.99 .ME domain names with the code ALLABOUTME. We are not sure how long these prices will remain in effect and they don’t offer the free whois privacy like Go Daddy.

Additional information – 01/06/11

Ok, we’ve attempted to register .ME domain names at 123-reg again and this time the price appears as £1.99. So, there are no restrictions as to whom this promotion applies. That notion of disparate pricing really didn’t make sense anyway but it was the only explanation we could think of. It seems that you may only purchase 10 names per order to receive the £1.99 price.

So, again, the 123-reg prices are £1.99 per .ME domain name. There is a VAT tax of 20% that applies as well. So, taking that into account, the final price in dollars of a .ME domain name purchased at 123-reg is about $3.70, which is still the lowest price that we’ve found.

Link to 123-reg

£1.99 .ME domain registrations at 123-reg.co.uk during their January sale. This works out to approximately $3.10. These are the lowest prices we’ve seen for 1-year registrations of .ME domain names.

Link to 123-reg.co.uk price list

(Note: We don’t have any relationship with this registrar, affiliate or otherwise, just wanted to pass along what we feel is a terrific deal.)

update 1/12/11

We have joined the 123-reg.co.uk affiliate program.