Brand Finance recently published their 2024 list of the world’s 500 most valuable brands and we thought it would be interesting to look at domain name usage — both left-of-the-dot label and right-of-the-dot top-level domain (TLD) — to determine if any patterns or surprises emerge. The domain name we associated to each brand correlates to the website representing the brand’s primary web presence. When more than one live site was associated with a brand (for example, a corporate/marketing site and also a product site), we utilized the website with the highest traffic to represent the brand. 

Left-of-the-dot: Label

445 of 500 domain names, or 89% of the total, utilize an exact brand match left-of-the-dot label. Some muddiness exists with this figure because of the use of a brand acronym by some brands. To eliminate subjective categorization of domain names in this group, we applied a simple qualifier: If the brand is itself presented in acronym form in the Brand Finance list (further indicating adoption of the brand acronym by the brand itself), use of the matching acronym as primary domain name was considered an exact label match. If the brand itself appears in long form in the list, but the in-use domain name is an acronym of the brand, it was not included in the exact brand match count. 

Digging into the characteristics of the chosen label for those brands not utilizing an exact brand match label, we found the following distribution, with examples included for reference:

  • Exact brand acronym matches to the full brand name: Standard Chartered: sc.com, Union Pacific: up.com
  • Brand + country labels: Moutai: moutaichina.com, Reliance Group: reliancegroupindia.com
  • Shortened versions of a brand name: Deutsche Telekom: telekom.com, Xiaomi: mi.com
  • Modified brand acronyms: Industrial Bank: cib.com.cn, PTT: pttplc.com
  • Brand + general descriptor: Yanghe: yangheglobal.com, GS Group > gsgcorp.com)
  • Hyphenated: Rewe: rewe-group.com, SF Express: sf-express.com
  • Brand +industry descriptor: Sumitomo: sumitomoelectric.com, Haier: haierappliances.com
  • Re-directs to parent: wrigley.com: mars.com, quickbooks.com: quickbooks.intuit.com

Of the 55 domain names not utilizing the exact label match, we note that 16 of these brands do also own the exact brand match .com, indicating a likely preference for the alternative domain name.

Right-of-the-dot: TLD

438 of 500 domain names — or 88% of the total — utilize a .com domain. While outsized .com representation came as no surprise, it is worth noting that .com domain names currently represent approximately 37% of all global domain name registrations. The 88% .com use rate across the most valuable brands illustrates a measurably stronger preference for the TLD; the .com TLD punches above its weight here, even in comparison to its global registration share. 

The 62 non-.com domain names in use for primary web presence break out as follows:

*BNP Paribas: group.bnpparibas, E.Leclerc: e.leclerc, State Bank of India: onlinesbi.sbi, Canon: global.canon, Bradesco: banco.bradesco. While we acknowledge that grouping these TLDs together under the generalized “.brand” moniker is inaccurate in a strict sense, we believe it accurately reflects our intent to illustrate adoption of this TLD type. 

Recognizing the impact of the use of .com domain names by American brands, with all 201 US brands on the list utilizing a .com domain, we looked at the rest-of-world subset to obtain a sense of .com’s popularity with the largest non-US brands. 237 of the 299 non-US brands — or 79% — utilize .com domain names. The overall 88% figure is clearly impacted by the preference across American brands for .com over the (.us) country code TLD (ccTLD), but even the 79% rest-of-world number represents more than twice .com’s global domain name share. Some outsized .com representation across the world’s most valuable brands isn’t surprising; across the entirety of the hundreds of millions of businesses in existence, most brands and businesses are local/domestic, and use of a domestic ccTLD or alternate gTLD is perfectly suitable. For brands operating on a global scale, the .com preference is clear. 

The relatively strong representation by .brand TLDs was somewhat unexpected. Perceived adoption has been slow and many applicants from the 2012 round withdrew or abandoned their .brands. The fact that five of the top 500 brands have moved to their own more tightly controllable closed TLD spaces is worth monitoring. As the Next Round of ICANN’s New gTLD Program ramps up, it will be interesting to see if adoption continues to rise over the next 10 years as the Next Round rolls out.

Conclusions: Domain Names Used by the World’s Largest Brands

The principal takeaway was unambiguous: Brands favor domain names which are an exact brand match left-of-the-dot label in the .com top level domain (TLD).  398 of the 500 brands (80%) utilize an exact brand match label in the .com TLD.

While this is an impressive figure, it’s important to acknowledge the size of the outlier group as well. 102 of the world’s 500 largest global brands are utilizing a domain name with a left-of-the-dot inexact brand label match, a right-of-the-dot non-.com, or both, as their primary web presence. 

For brands whose lifeblood is their web presence, the relative importance of the “perfect” domain name increases considerably. Site traffic improves with, for example, an ability to combine high organic search placement with maximized type-in traffic capture. But this isn’t critical for every type of brand — for many brands and industries, departure from exact brand match .com domains is an acceptable alternative and does not seem to have impacted their ability to grow into some of the most successful brands in the world. Later this year, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at the domain landscape related to these brands; watch this space for further news.