It has been over 10 years since ICANN launched the New gTLD program.  Which New gTLD has been the most successful?  Domain industry metrics would point to .xyz with over 3.6M domains under management or DUM as listed in the #1 position on www.ntldstats.com.  ICANN launched the New gTLD program to give Internet users greater choice and bring innovation to the DNS industry.  Several categories of New gTLDs applied: generics, geos and cities, communities and brands.  Brand gTLDs were the largest category of applications with over 500.  So today, let’s look at which is the most successful brand TLDs.  It might not be who you think.

If we rank the brand TLDs by domain count per www.ntldstats.com the top 5 are shown below.  However, if we then include the monthly traffic for all websites in the TLD  we get the following:

            Domain Rank       Brand TLD                   Domains         Mo. Traffic

                        1                      .audi                            1,691               305,000

                        2                      .mma                           1,664               24,000

                        3                      .nexus                          1,292               -

                        4                      .allfinanz                     1,229               -

                        5                      .leclerc                        1,098               13,569,100

The traffic data is from www.similarweb.com.  The traffic for .nexus and .allfinanz websites all fell below the lowest category of < 5,000 visitors.  This data begs the question for more information.  If we expand the list the top 10 brand TLDs based upon monthly visitor traffic we get the following:

            Traffic Rank          Brand TLD                   Websites         Mo. Traffic

                        1                      .google                         41                    81.4M

                        2                      .leclerc                        26                    13.6M

                        3                      .bnpparibas                29                   10.6M

                        4                      .bradesco                    7                      10.3M

                        5                      .aws                             12                    8.5M

                        6                      .yandex                        9                     7.2M

                        7                      .abbott                        60                    6.3M

                        8                      .canon                         42                   5.8M

                        9                      .sncf                            7                      2.5M

                        10                    .cern                            21                    1.6M

Now it is no surprise that .google ranks #1 for brand TLD monthly traffic.  Google.com receives 86.3B monthly visitors.  The 41 .google websites are less than 1% of the Google’s total traffic. 

However, the second spot is an interesting result.  Leclerc is a 50B euro diversified retailer in France.  In 2012 they applied for the .leclerc TLD with AFNIC as their back-end registry provider. The data shows .leclerc was delegated in late 2014 and a few hundred domains were registered through late 2020.  The company’s main website was www.e-leclerc.com which grew to over 8M visitors per month by end of 2020.  In early 2021, the company made the bold switch to www.e.leclerc and has not looked back. Monthly traffic has continued to grow to currently 11M monthly visitors up 11% yr/yr.  Whereas with Google, the .google TLD accounts for 1% of company total traffic.  With Leclerc, the .leclerc TLD may account for 99% of total company traffic. 

Leclerc has transitioned to E.leclerc as their logo which received extensive global exposure through their high-profile sponsorship of this year’s Tour de France cycling race for the King of the Mountain jersey.  Leclerc has embraced their brand TLD and demonstrates innovation to other Round 1 and potential Round 2 brands that success is possible.   

If you are interested in brand gTLDs or further information, please use the “Contact” page to connect.  More to come…