How to choose your company's website domain? Lessons from .google

If you work in digital marketing, branding or SEO, you've probably seen URLs like blog.google, about.google or ai.google and wondered: is this just a different website domain or is there something big behind it?

The truth is that .google is not a design whim. It's part of a structural change in how big brands occupy space on the internet, with a direct impact on security, trust, content and search performance.

The idea is to give you the clarity to make better decisions today, even if your brand never has its own TLD.

.google in practice for marketing, content and SEO

.google is a branded TLD (a ".brand") operated by Alphabet, exclusive to Google sites and products and closed to any third party. It is part of ICANN's new gTLD program and was created to give more control, security and coherence to the company's digital presence, with forced HTTPS throughout and an ecosystem of website domains, such as blog.google, about.google and ai.google.

In practice, this has a direct impact on trust, content organization, website domain migrations and reading by search engines and AIs, serving as a structural reference for any brand that wants to treat website domains as a strategic infrastructure, rather than a technical detail.

• • Understand what .google is as a brand TLD;

• • See how it increases security, control and trust in URLs;

• • See the impact on content hubs and website domain architecture;

• • Learn from the case of migrating to about.google without losing SEO;

• • Extract principles applicable to any company, with or without a .brand.

What you'll see in today's content

• Understand what the .google brand TLD is and how it came about
• Understand what a website domain is and why it is so important for your digital presence
• See how .google works in the structure of website domains and in security
• Compare traditional website domains with branded TLDs from a trust perspective
• Explore the impact of .google on content marketing and hub organization
• Evaluate the indirect effects of .google on SEO and website domain migrations
• See how .google relates to generative AI and optimization for LLMs
• Understand when it makes sense to invest in a .brand and how to apply the principles to any company

Happy reading!

What is .google? Quick definition, snippet style

Let's start with the basics, the direct way it might appear in a featured Google result:

.google is a branded website top-level domain (TLD) - a ".brand" - operated by Alphabet. It is exclusive to Google sites and products, is not open to the public and can only be used by the company itself.

Technically, .google is a branded gTLD (generic top-level domain), created under ICANN's new domains program. Since 2012, this program has led to the delegation of more than 1,200 new gTLDs, including several brand extensions.

Some important facts:

• Operator: .google is operated by Alphabet via Google Registry.
• Who registers: only Google can create .google domains, following the category of branded TLDs defined in ICANN Spec 13.
• When it appeared: the TLD was introduced in 2014 and began to be used more widely in 2016, with domains such as blog.google and about.google.

In other words: .google is not a sophisticated subdomain; it is an extension of its own, designed to organize Google's digital presence with greater control and security.

What is a website domain and what is it used for?

The website domain is the "main address" that people type into their browser to find your brand on the internet, such as company.com or blog.google.

It is made up of two parts: the name chosen for the brand and the extension (TLD), such as .com, .net or .google, which appears after the last dot and helps indicate the type of digital presence that URL represents.

In practice, the website's domain is the starting point for its entire URL architecture: it organizes blogs, institutional pages, product areas and content hubs, as well as influencing how people remember and recognize the brand when they see a link in an ad, email or social network.

That's why choosing and structuring the right domain is a strategic branding, security and SEO decision, not just a technical hosting detail.

Image: "Open padlock representing security, trust and control when defining the site's domain and using branded TLDs such as .google.

How .google works under the hood (without becoming a DNS lesson)

Before talking about marketing, it's worth briefly understanding how .google fits into the structure of the web.

1. .google is what comes after the last dot

In an address like google.com, ".com" is the TLD. In blog.google, ".google" is the TLD, and what comes before it - "blog" - is the domain of the second-level site.

In practice:

• In company.com, the brand name is to the left of the dot.
• In algo.google, the brand name is to the right of the dot.

This changes the way the brand appears and how people remember and recognize the URL.

2. It's a branded TLD (dotBrand): closed environment, no "strange neighbors"

.google is an example of a dotBrand TLD, a type of extension in which:

• The TLD uses the brand name itself (.google, .bmw, .barclays, etc.).
• Only the brand owner can register domains there.
• There is no other player using that extension.

Within this universe, there are now more than 400 delegated brand TLDs and hundreds of companies operating their own .brand.

3. High security: HTTPS forced throughout the extension

Google has placed .google on the HSTS preload list, a list that makes browsers always access the domains of that TLD via HTTPS.

This means, in practice:

• Every .google website is served exclusively via HTTPS.
• The browser doesn't even try to open an insecure HTTP version.
• Attacks that exploit unencrypted connections become much more difficult.

For marketing, the message is simple:

When you communicate a URL in .google, you are implicitly saying "this is official and secure".

Where .google came from: the context of the new gTLDs and .brand

.google was born within the New gTLD Program, an ICANN initiative that in 2012 opened up the possibility for organizations to apply for new website domain extensions.

Some figures to help understand the size of the change:

• Before the program, there were only 22 generic gTLDs - such as .com, .net, .org.
• In the first round, 1,930 applications for new gTLDs were received.
• Today, more than 1,200 new gTLDs have already been delegated to the root of the Internet.

Within this universe, branded TLDs have emerged, a category that reserves the extension for a single holder, usually a registered trademark holder.

Google Registry itself states that it has been using branded TLDs since 2016 and that it sees security, control and SEO benefits in them - .google being the most visible example of this.

What .google changes in digital marketing in practice

So far, so structural. Let's bring this into the reality of those who deal with sales funnels, media and KPIs.

Sign of trust in a scenario where every link looks suspicious

Today, one of the biggest pains for marketers is simple: people are afraid to click on a link. Scams via SMS, WhatsApp, email and ads erode trust.

Research into branded TLDs shows something interesting:

• Only a minority of users recognize the concept of ".brand" right away.
• But after understanding that only the brand can use that extension:
  • 80% consider that a .brand site inspires more trust, according to Afnic's survey of 2,000 French internet users, presented in the Custom internet TLDs white paper.
  • 77% agree that a branded TLD offers greater security in online transactions and when receiving emails, according to the same study.

In other words: when someone sees something.google, they tend to assume that it's actually from Google - not from a third party impersonating the brand.

Before and after: brand perception in generic vs. .google website domains

Let's now compare the traditional scenario (open domains like .com) with a branded TLD like .google, focusing on what matters for marketing.

Table 01: Traditional domains vs. branded TLD (.google)

After looking at it from this angle, the summary for digital marketing is:

.google turns every URL into a trusted asset, not just a campaign endpoint.

This affects click-through rates, campaign response and, above all, overall brand perception over time.

SEE ALSO:

• What Google's 'People Also Ask' is and how it works
• AI overview: what it is and how it works
• How Google's AI is affecting organic traffic

Impacts of .google on content marketing

.google also changes how content marketing is organized and presented.

Clearer and more memorable content hubs

Examples of the domains of the sites Google uses today help to visualize:

• blog.google - editorial content, news, brand stories.
• about.google - institutional company information.
• ai.google - everything AI in a single hub.

For those who create content, this has three clear advantages:

• Correct expectation: by the URL alone, the user already understands the type of content they will find.
• A more organized journey: each hub has a clear role in the journey (discovery, consideration, institutional).
• Thematic authority: IA, institutional, editorial - each topic gets its own well-defined "home".

Real problems that this model helps to solve

If you feel that:

• The company blog has become a mishmash of releases, tutorials, campaigns and institutional text,
• Landings live on improvised subdomains or disposable domains and
• Each team creates its own piece of the web without thinking about the whole,

The .google model suggests a solution in principle:

"Editorial content goes to a clear hub. Institutional content has its own home. Strategic topics (such as AI, innovation, ESG) get their own territories."

This doesn't depend 100% on having a branded TLD. But the way Google does it with .google is a good reference map.

URL standards: traditional model vs. logic inspired by .google

The table below is not a ready-made recipe, but it shows how the logic of .google can inspire any brand to better organize its content - even on a .com.

Table 02: URL standards in content

Learning here is simple:

You may not be able to copy the domain of the site, but you can copy the clarity of the logic - and that already greatly improves the experience, SEO and AI readability.

.google and SEO: what really changes in ranking

Here's the question everyone asks, sometimes quietly:

"If the site is in .google, doesn't Google give it a little ranking boost?"

Everything Google itself has said about TLDs points out that the type of TLD alone is not a ranking factor. .com, .net, .blog or .google: what matters is the quality of the content, relevance, links, experience and trust signals.

But .google does affect indirect factors relevant to SEO:

• More trust → higher CTR, better engagement.
• Standard security (HTTPS) → alignment with good practices and a more stable experience.
• Clearer architecture → makes it easier for crawlers and AI models to interpret the site as a whole.

The case: migration from google.com/about to about.google

In the official article "3 lessons learned from launching .google", Google tells how it migrated the institutional page from google. com/about to about.google, a URL with around 20 years of SEO history.

Key points of the migration:

• SEO audit before the change.
• Well-planned 301/302 redirects.
• Updating of canonicals, hreflang, sitemaps and robots.
• Close monitoring of errors and reports in Search Console.
• Temporary maintenance of equivalent URLs (about.google and about.google.com) to capture the habit of typing ".com".

According to Google itself, the migration was carried out without any significant loss of search equity.

Message for those looking at it from the outside:

Changing domains - even to a .brand - is viable in SEO, as long as the migration is treated as a serious project, not as a last-minute technical detail.

Lessons learned from .google applied to your SEO strategy

Even if you're never going to operate your own TLD, you can use the same principles to strengthen your SEO base.

First of all, a warning: this is not a technical step-by-step, but a maturity checklist inspired by the case of .google.

Strategic SEO checklist inspired by .google

• Map critical URLs and important site flows before any major change.
• Keep sitemaps up-to-date and clean, reflecting the actual architecture.
• Use 301 with discipline whenever you change website URLs or domains.
• Avoid throwaway campaign domains, which waste authority.
• Standardize URL structures by content type (blog, product, institutional).
• Monitor 404 and cascading redirects and correct them quickly.
• Ensure HTTPS on all properties, regardless of TLD.
• Align marketing, IT and product before any domain repositioning.

Once you've applied this, you'll already be at a level of organization close to what companies need to operate a .brand - with or without its own extension.

.google, generative AI and "LLM optimization" (LLMO)

Search engines with AI and models like Gemini or GPT consume, summarize and rewrite content on a large scale. For them, a domain like blog.google is full of strong signals:

• The .google TLD directly indicates who the entity behind the site is.
• The URL pattern makes it easy to identify theme hubs (ai.google, about.google, etc.).
• Visual and textual consistency reinforces the idea of a reliable source.

This ties in with an important point: entities and consultancies that follow the branded TLD market show that dotBrands are seen as a sign of security, authenticity and digital maturity, exactly the kinds of things that AI models try to value when choosing what to cite.

KEEP LEARNING:

• SEO for LLM: The Guide to Getting Featured in AI Responses
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How to make your content more "AI friendly", inspired by .google

You may never have a .brand, but you can write it in a way that helps both humans and LLMs (Large Language Models).

Here are some practices, based on what we see on sites like blog.google:

Good content practices focused on AI and people

• Use titles that answer real questions
  • E.g. "What is .google and how does it work?" instead of "Reflections on modern domains".
• Open sections with clear definitions in 1 - 2 sentences
  • This feeds into snippets, quick answers and AI summaries.
• Give context before and after lists and tables
  • Helps the reader interpret and makes life easier for models when summarizing.
• Organize clear thematic hubs (even within .com)
  • /blog, /about, /ia, /help - better than everything mixed up at the root.
• Include data and links to reliable sources
  • This increases your credibility and creates a "trust graph" around your content.
• Keep the text human, with real pain and tangible benefit
  • AI models tend to prefer content that clearly helps someone solve a problem.

The result is content that:

Is easy to read, easy to summarize and easy to choose as a source - either by a human with limited time, or by an AI system that needs to generate a reliable answer.

Is it worth thinking about a .brand like .google?

This is where the strategic part comes in. A .brand is not plug-and-play; it's expensive, time-consuming and makes more sense for large organizations.

The next round of new extensions from the New gTLD Program - next round is scheduled for 2026, and interested companies need to plan ahead.

If you are a large company

If your reality includes:

• Strong global or regional brand.
• High risk of phishing and domain abuse.
• Complex ecosystem of sites, products and units.

It's worth looking at .google and asking a few questions:

• Would a branded TLD reduce costs and crises linked to fraud and lookalike domains?
• How could a .brand simplify the currently confusing architecture of domains?
• How much would an extension of its own strengthen the perception of security in sensitive campaigns (banking, health, government, education)?

Reports and market analysis show that companies adopting dotBrand tend to see gains in brand protection, naming control and clarity of communication.

If you are a medium or small company

If your budget is tight and your focus is on surviving and growing, a .brand is hardly on the list of priorities, and that's fine.

What you can do today, inspired by .google, is:

• Be careful when choosing your main domain, avoiding confusing names or those that are too similar to other brands.
• Ensure HTTPS on everything, even small sites or campaign landings.
• Better organize subdomains and folders, creating clear hubs for blog, institutional, help, customer area, etc.
• Treat any domain or URL change as an SEO project, not just a technical hosting task.

In summary:

You may not have a .google, but you can operate your .com with the same structural seriousness that a .brand requires.

Closing the account: what .google teaches those who make a living from marketing, content and SEO

If we put all the points together, .google sends some important messages to those on the front line of digital:

1. Domain is brand infrastructure, not just a technical detail.
2. Security and trust have become part of branding - and the TLD helps to communicate this.
3. Clear content architecture makes life easier for users, search engines and AI.
4. Well-planned domain migrations preserve SEO, even during major changes.
5. Even without a .brand, you can apply the same principles today.

If you feel that your company's website is a jigsaw puzzle of blogs, landing pages and microsites that are difficult to explain, the .google move works almost like a mirror: it shows you where you can improve the structure, security and coherence of the narrative.

In a sentence:

.google is a sign of where the most mature brands are heading: to control not only the message, but the "digital territory" where that message lives.

You don't have to get there tomorrow. But understanding this movement now puts you one step ahead when new rounds of TLDs, new security requirements and new forms of AI search come knocking on your marketing door.

Next practical steps out of theory

If you want to turn all of this into concrete action, start with three simple things: make an inventory of domains and subdomains, ensure that they all use HTTPS and correct redirects, and draw up a document of the company's content hub logic.

These steps alone will put your operation at a level above the market average.

If you want to turn all this into concrete results - more visibility, qualified clicks and real opportunities from Google - the next step is to understand how SEO, AI and LLMs play together in practice.

To delve deeper and come away with an action plan, read the complete guide "How to increase visibility on Google with AI and LLMs" and see strategies you can adapt to your reality, even if your organic traffic seems to be "disappearing" from the results today.

Frequently asked questions about website domains, .google and branded TLDs

What is a website domain?

A website domain is the address that people type into their browser to access a web page, such as company.com or blog.google. It combines the brand name with an extension (TLD), which is what appears after the last dot, such as .com, .org or .google. This combination identifies the brand's "digital territory" and indicates where the browser should take the user when they click on a link or type in a URL.

What is the difference between a website domain and a TLD, such as .google?

The website domain is the full address, for example google.com or blog.google. A TLD (Top-Level Domain) is just the final part after the last dot, such as .com or .google. In the case of .google, it is a branded TLD, exclusive to Google, used to organize the company's digital presence with greater security, control and naming consistency. In short: the domain is the combination of the name + TLD, while the TLD is the "extension" that helps define the structure and perception of that address.

How does the choice of website domain impact trust and SEO?

The choice of website domain directly influences user trust and some indirect SEO factors. Clear domains, coherent with the brand and structured in an organized architecture make it easier for search engines to read and help people recognize official URLs among so many suspicious links. Branded TLDs, such as .google, further reinforce this perception of security and authenticity, which tends to improve click-through rates and engagement - important signals for long-term organic performance.

What is .google and why is it considered a branded TLD?

.google is a branded generic top-level domain (gTLD), a ".brand", operated by Alphabet via Google Registry and reserved exclusively for Google's own sites and products. It was born within ICANN's new gTLD program and follows the category of branded TLDs defined in Spec 13, which means that only the owner of the brand can register domains there. In practice, .google functions as the brand's own extension, used to organize its digital presence with greater control, security, naming consistency and protection against misuse by third parties.

Who can register .google domains and how long has it existed?

Only Google can create .google domains, because the TLD is classified as a brand TLD and is not open to the general public. The extension was introduced in 2014 as part of ICANN's New gTLD Program and began to be used more widely in 2016, with domains such as blog.google and about.google. This model guarantees a closed environment, without "strange neighbors", in which every URL in .google is, by definition, linked to the company itself, reinforcing the perception of officiality and reducing vectors for brand abuse and phishing.

How does .google increase security and trust compared to traditional domains?

.google increases security by combining a closed domain space, exclusive to the brand, with HTTPS forced throughout the extension via the HSTS preload list. This means that browsers always access .google sites via HTTPS, without trying unencrypted versions, which makes it more difficult for attacks to exploit insecure connections. Furthermore, as only Google can register .google domains, the risk of third parties creating similar domains to trick users disappears. For marketing, each .google URL implicitly communicates officiality, authenticity and greater protection for browsing and transactions.

How does .google impact digital marketing and brand perception?

.google transforms the domain into an asset of trust and branding, not just a technical address. In a scenario where users are wary of links in SMS, email and advertisements, knowing that only Google uses .google increases the tendency to see these URLs as official and secure. Research into branded TLDs indicates that, once the concept is explained, most users come to associate branded extensions with more trust and security in transactions and emails. This affects click-through rates, response to campaigns and overall brand perception over time.

What are the effects of .google on content marketing and hub organization?

.google allows Google to build clear and memorable content hubs, such as blog.google for editorial content, about.google for institutional information and ai.google for AI topics. This logic helps define expectations right from the URL, organize the journey by function (discovery, consideration, institutional) and reinforce thematic authority on strategic topics. For other companies, the main learning is clarity: even on a .com, it is possible to create consistent URL standards, separate blog, institutional and strategic topic hubs and prevent the site from becoming a confusing mosaic of subdomains and disposable campaign domains.

Does .google improve Google rankings? How does it relate to SEO?

The type of TLD in itself is not a ranking factor; .com, .net, .blog or .google are treated equivalently, as long as they meet the criteria of content, relevance, experience and trust signals. However, .google influences indirect factors that are important for SEO. A more secure and trustworthy environment tends to increase clicks and engagement, which improves behavioral signals. The coherent architecture of domains and hubs makes it easier for crawlers and AI models to interpret the site as a whole. In addition, the disciplined use of HTTPS and good migration practices reduces risks when changing structures.

What does the case of the migration from google.com/about to about.google teach us about domain changes?

The migration from google.com/about to about.google shows that changing a domain, even to a .brand, is viable for SEO when treated as a serious project. In the official report, Google highlights the importance of doing an SEO audit before the change, planning 301/302 redirects well, updating canonicals, hreflang, sitemaps and robots, as well as monitoring errors in Search Console. The temporary maintenance of equivalent URLs helped capture the habit of typing ".com". According to Google itself, the change was made without any significant loss of "search equity", reinforcing that the risk is in the execution, not the TLD.

How can the lessons learned from .google be applied by companies that don't have their own TLD?

Even without their own TLD, companies can apply the principles that .google illustrates. It is possible to map critical URLs, standardize structures by content type, avoid throwaway campaign domains and treat any domain change as an SEO project, with well-planned redirects. Ensuring HTTPS on all properties, maintaining clean sitemaps, monitoring 404 errors and cascading redirects is also part of this package. In addition, designing clear hubs for blogging, institutional, help and strategic themes brings the operation closer to the maturity required for a .brand, using .com with the same structural seriousness.

What is the relationship between .google, generative AI and optimization for LLMs?

Domains such as blog.google and ai.google provide strong signals for search engines with AI and language models, which need to identify reliable sources. The .google TLD directly indicates the entity behind the site, while the URL patterns highlight organized thematic hubs. This is in addition to good content practices adopted by Google, such as headings that answer real questions, clear definitions at the start of sections and context before and after lists and tables. These elements make content easier to read, summarize and cite, benefiting both people and AI systems that need to generate reliable answers.

When is a branded TLD like .google worth considering?

A branded TLD usually makes the most sense for large organizations with strong brands, high phishing risks and complex ecosystems of sites, products and units. In these cases, a .brand can reduce costs and fraud-related crises, simplify a currently confusing architecture and reinforce the perception of security in sensitive campaigns. For medium and small companies on a tight budget, the priority tends to be to run a good .com, with HTTPS on everything, organized subdomains and careful migrations. The important thing is to treat domains as brand infrastructure, applying the same principles of clarity, control and security.