The Freename Forum

The international management consultancy DOTZON GmbH recently published its sixth ‘Digital Corporate Brands’ ranking study, this time for the year 2024. The neck-and-neck race between the three-time number 1 .audi and three-time number 1 .leclerc once again ended with a change of leadership in favour of Audi.

DOTZON has been advising companies in German-speaking countries on digital identities since 2005. DOTZON recently presented the 21-page study ‘Digital Corporate Brands 2024’. The study deals with digital product and company brands that were approved as .brand as part of the application for new top level domains initiated by ICANN at the beginning of 2012. As always, after a brief summary of the study, there is an introduction to the topic of brand extensions and the extension of company and product brands by digital company brands. The basis for the study is then presented, according to which the now only 438 existing brand endings (452 in 2023, 475 in 2022, 496 in 2021) are evaluated. The number of domains registered under a brand extension is 26,631: after an increase from 23,439 domains in 2020 to 24,700 domains in 2021 and a slight decline to 23,839 domains in 2022, the number of registered domains has been rising again since 2023 (24,515). As before, the ranking of digital corporate brands is measured using seven evaluation parameters: the number of registered domains, the extent to which these resolve on the web, the number of domains with a mail server set up, the number of newly used domains (HTTP code 200), the use of HTTPS, the visibility of the top-level domain based on the SISTRIX platform and the Tranco ranks. This time there was again a lot of movement among the TOP 10 active brand endings. As a result, .audi is in first place on the list for the 4th time, after .leclerc, the ending of the French co-operative and supermarket chain Leclerc, manoeuvred itself into first place for the 3rd time last year. It is followed by the German Schwarz Group (Lidl, Kaufland, etc.) in third place with .schwarz. 4, 6 and 9 place are occupied by old acquaintances: .dvag, .google and .bnpparibas. In 5th place, ahead of .google, was its short sister .goog. Out of nowhere, .gmx moved up to 7th place and .man to 10th place.

Under ‘Other observations’, DOTZON continues to note that numerous endings do not keep the mandatory domain nic.tld accessible. In addition, DOTZON again states that there is room for improvement with regard to the security technology SSL encryption: for domains in the nic.tld format, there are 211 secured domains compared to 223 unsecured domains. Of the total number of registered domains, 10,784 are secured compared to 15,847 unsecured domains. DOTZON also notes that around 17 per cent of all registered .brand domains do not resolve and users receive an error message. Many operators do not use domains registered under their own control. As always, the DOTZON study reveals further data and encouraging examples of the use of domains and brand extensions. As always, the 21-page study ‘Digital Corporate Brands 2024’ by DOTZON provides an overview of the state of .mark extensions. It is written in an easy-to-understand and clear manner and is definitely worth reading.

You can find the ‘Digital Corporate Brands 2024’ study (in German) at:
https://dotzon.consulting/studien/