Some 14 million new web sites using .com and .net registrations were created worldwide in the first three months of 2008, with increasing numbers of organisations expanding their online presence, according to internet security firm VeriSign.

The number of sites was up 26 per cent on the same quarter in 2007, and six per cent over the previous three months, with the total number of of top-level domain names now surpassing 162 million.

VeriSign attributed the growth to new web sites set up by companies in developed and emerging economies, noting double digit growth in registrations ending in .pl (Poland), .cn (China), .es (Spain), .ru (Russia) and .fr (France).