DOTZON presents the eighth edition of the Digital Company Brands study. Since introducing the study in 2018, DOTZON has continuously expanded and refined the underlying data to illustrate how companies successfully leverage their Digital Company Brands. A Digital Company Brand represents the digital dimension of a corporate brand and also reflects a company’s “digitalness.”

For “Digital Company Brands 2025,” we analyzed all companies worldwide that operate their own top-level domain. Currently, over 410 brands maintain their own digital company or product brand on the internet in the form of a so-called “dotBrand.” The analysis examined 29,561 registered domains based on seven key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs encompass quantitative metrics such as the number of registered domains, email setup, and the ratio between resolving and non-resolving domains, as well as qualitative measures including search engine performance and visibility on the Internet.

But which company brands are thriving, who stands out from the crowd, and what has changed since the previous year’s study?

Changes compared to the previous year

In this year’s study, Audi successfully defended its top position with .audi once again. For the first time, the Schwarz Group reached second place with .schwarz, closely followed by .dvag—also from Germany—in third place. Both improved their rankings by one position each.

The Canadian cooperative CRS made its Top 10 debut with .crs, landing directly in fourth place. Google climbed one spot to fifth place with its well-known dotBrand .google. The company’s lesser-known .goog reached eighth place this year, compared to fifth place previously. The French retailer .leclerc dropped from second place and scored the sixth position. Pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories returns to the Top 10, securing seventh place. Seat represents another brand that re-entered the Top 10 after a hiatus, reaching ninth place. .allfinanz lost two positions, falling from eighth place last year to tenth place this year.

This year, the three brands .gmx, .bnpparibas, and .man dropped out of the Top 10 ranking. However, they achieved strong placements at 12th, 15th, and 14th, respectively, giving them a solid chance to return to the Top 10 ranking next year.

Digital Company Brands Ranking 2025

1st PLACE: .audi

.audi was delegated on November 17, 2015. The company uses its almost 1,700 domains under the .audi extension to provide German Audi dealers with a standardised domain for customer communication. The German automaker once again secures the top position in the ranking. The consistently strong result in the ranking is driven by first place in the Sistrix ranking and excellent scores across the KPIs for Tranco ranking, number of domains, and encrypted domains.

2nd place: .schwarz

The TLD .schwarz was delegated on December 10, 2014. The Schwarz Group includes brands such as Lidl and Kaufland, making it Europe’s largest retail company and the fourth-largest worldwide. The Group uses the .schwarz extension for IT services, as well as internal and corporate communications. .schwarz achieves second place through strong performance in the KPIs for usage of new domains and encrypted communication. Additionally, the KPIs for the number of registered domains and resolving domains contribute to this result.

3rd place: .dvag

.dvag was delegated on September 25, 2014. Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG) is a financial services distributor operating in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and has been actively using its extension for several years. With 8,767 domains, .dvag once again takes the top spot for the number of registered domains. Combined with additional leading positions for resolving domains, newly used domains, and encrypted domains, DVAG deservedly earns third place.

4th place: .crs

The .crs extension stands for “Co-operative Retailing System (CRS)” of the Canadian cooperative „Federated Co-operatives” and was delegated on October 9, 2014. CRS initially used only a few domains and didn’t actively launch operations until 2018. The fourth-place finish is driven by second place in the new domain usage KPI and excellent rankings in the KPIs for encrypted domains and domains set up for email.

5th place: .google

.google was delegated on September 4, 2014. Initially, Google used its own extensions sparingly, but has significantly increased usage in recent years. Once again, Google is the exception in the Digital Company Brand ranking with two brands. After finishing sixth place last year, .google improved by one position. The company owes this to second place in the Sistrix ranking as well as strong placements in the Tranco ranking and the number of encrypted domains.

6th place: .leclerc

The .leclerc internet extension was delegated on February 27, 2015. E.Leclerc is a French cooperative and supermarket chain that takes a solid sixth place after finishing second the previous year. This result is driven by strong placements in the KPIs for the number of domains, the number of resolving domains, and domains set up for email.

7th place: .abbott

The .abbott internet extension was approved on July 24, 2014. Since then, the American pharmaceutical company has been using its own extension—currently with over 400 domains. After a one-year hiatus, Abbott once again achieves seventh place in the ranking. This is due to excellent placements in the KPIs for the number of encrypted domains, Sistrix ranking, and Tranco ranking.

8th place: .goog

.goog was delegated on January 21, 2015. With the .goog TLD, the American company drops three positions from the previous year to finish in eighth place. This result is driven by an outstanding performance in the Tranco ranking as well as strong results in the number of domains, resolving domains, and newly registered domains.

9th place: .seat

The Spanish automaker’s TLD .seat was delegated on April 16, 2015. In print and online campaigns, the Spanish automobile manufacturer frequently uses its .seat extension. In addition, Seat’s strong placement is due in part to the many registered and used domains. Besides, email usage is configured for many domains.

10th place: .allfinanz

Allfinanz Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG has been operating its company brand .allfinanz since September 26, 2014. It belongs to Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG), a financial services distributor operating in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The .allfinanz company brand has landed in tenth place once again after several placements between 8th and 10th place. The reason for this placement is second place in each of the KPIs for the number of domains, resolving domains, and encrypted domains. A third-place finish in the number of newly used domains rounds out the placement.

The detailed study Digital Company Brands 2025 is available on the DOTZON website (in German).