3 lessons learned from launching .google
In 2026, the next round of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) is opening up. This gives brand owners an opportunity to secure their own “.brand” extension. At Google Registry, we've believed in the benefits and security of branded TLDs for years — and we’ve used them ourselves since 2016. Here’s how we use .google, and what we’ve learned in the process.
1. .brand domains can be a safer option.
Google has owned .google and .youtube since 2012, but didn’t start using .google until 2016. Like many companies, we were heavily using our primary domain, google.com. As our product offerings grew, so did our marketing websites. There are security risks inherent with hosting marketing websites and multiple services on the same domain as your key product, especially if the website is built by an outside agency (which is often the case for many companies).
One example, due to security considerations, our editorial team could not launch our blog on google.com. Enter blog.google (the site you’re on now!) — a short, memorable domain name that was the best possible home for such an important website. Plus, no one can register a domain on .google besides Google.
Unlike “open” top-level domains, such as .com or .app, where anyone can purchase a second-level domain, a .brand is unique because only the brand owner can register domains under the extension. This gives a brand ultimate control over what kinds of URLs they communicate to the world (see ai.google and about.youtube as additional examples) and allows a level of security that isn’t possible with open namespaces. You can also consider adding your .brand to the HSTS-preload list, which is something we did for .google and many of our other TLDs.
2. You can migrate to a .brand without sacrificing SEO.
The biggest question that comes up is how moving an existing website to a new domain will affect search engine optimization (SEO). In 2019, Google moved our company’s about page from google.com/about to about.google. This website had 20 years of SEO built in and the team was able to successfully perform the migration without losing any search equity in the process.
To make the process smooth, do an audit ahead of the migration to make sure your SEO basics are covered, like a proper site map and metadata. Make sure all old links continue to direct through 302 and 301 redirects, and monitor error reports on the old domain for a while. Be mindful of updating the canonicals, hreflang tags (if relevant), XML sitemaps and robot file too.
And remember to set up similar URLs: We made sure that about.google and about.google.com both worked, because some people will make the mistake of adding the .com.
3. A .brand can help with your trademark.
When we launched blog.google, a question that came up was: why not launch on googleblog.com? It’s a best practice to avoid using second-level domains with your trademark in it. Anyone can register this type of domain to impersonate your brand for phishing, so it’s important not to train people to trust this kind of construct. There are many well-known examples of brand impersonation using similar domain structures. We set up googleblog.com to redirect to blog.google, but it isn’t a domain we ever promote.
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The opportunity to apply for new extensions is rare (it’s been 14 years since the last round). If you are a brand thinking about applying for a top-level domain in 2026, we hope that some of the lessons Google learned can help you.
