It’s been a decade since the first round of DotBrand domains hit the internet. If you missed it, this was an opportunity back in 2012 for brands to have their own TLD (top-level domain). So, instead of being one of the many .com domains out there, they could have their very own DotBrand (sometimes called a .brand or even a dot.brand. We’re sticking to DotBrand just because it’s easier to read).

It was part of ICANN’s effort to introduce new gTLDs (generic top-level domains) to take the pressure off the .com domain extension and allow more creativity in the digital landscape. Many big companies took up ICANN’s offer and bought their own piece of the internet. Some had immediate plans for their DotBrands, while others were just doing their due diligence and protecting their intellectual property. 

That was over a decade ago—an absolute age in internet time. But now ICANN has announced that the second round of DotBrand TLDs is coming in 2026. If you are considering going through the application process to secure your brand’s own DotBrand TLD, then now is the time. Whether you want it to help with brand protection, social media, cybersecurity, or as part of a full digital brand transformation, we have a list of those who we think have gotten the most out of their own personalised DotBrand TLD. 

Barclays Bank with .barclays 

British bank Barclays uses their brand domain for their corporate website at home.barclays, while keeping the local offerings tailored to ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) like .co.uk. A big part of their reasoning is to help protect against phishing by having a domain that no one else can copy. It also helps to improve the user experience on their country-specific banking websites, as it separates corporate information that customers don’t need from the main site. 

CERN with .cern 

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is famous for its gigantic, multi-country Large Hadron Collider—a particle accelerator that discovered the Higgs boson, something that excites physicists about how the world works. They use their .cern brand domain extension for their main website, home.cern, and all their online presence. 

Google with .google 

Of course, Google is using a branded domain. They’ve been using .google for their company blog, where they share new developments, as well as for a bunch of their businesses. They’ve also registered several brand domains to use as functional suffixes for their services, like .cal for Google Calendar. The idea is to use them for easily identifiable links. 

Sky with .sky 

While a lot of the other companies on this list saw their brand domains as a good way to make sure you know it’s them online, media conglomerate Sky uses theirs as part of advertising and branding. Most famously with q.sky (for their Sky Q product), they use .sky for shorter-term campaign microsites that are easier-to-remember domains for potential customers. 

Canon with .canon 

You might know Canon best for their range of top-of-the-line cameras and printers, but they’re also a big deal in medical and industrial imaging—anywhere where having a clear picture is important. That’s probably why their corporate homepage is global.canon, clearly indicating who the page is for. 

BNP Paribas with .bnpparibas 

The French bank operates group.bnpparibas for corporate information, reinforcing brand consistency. It allows them to protect their brand and create a useful portal, separate from their consumer-facing website. 

While these rankings aren’t in any order, you can see that many companies have used their own .brand domains for their corporate websites. The new TLDs let them take on an international posture that a locally tied ccTLD might not have. It also lets them separate their hardworking retail sites from ones that are more focused on communicating to the investor community, when trying to fit both into one website could create a murky customer experience. 

Some, particularly the very digitally aware groups, have used their DotBrand domains as functional parts of their campaigns. They keep their normal TLDs for their basic websites but use their own domain name for specialized links, campaigns, or domain extensions that let users know these are safe websites—something that is becoming increasingly important for cybersecurity in an age where phishing and other types of internet fraud are even more prevalent. 

Of course, these aren’t all the .brand TLDs that were taken up during the first wave. Some brand owners have simply kept their custom TLD for themselves to prevent anyone else from using it. Others, like Nissan with .nissan and .datsun, have listed them on registrars and other service providers for the general public to use if they want to. 

But with over a decade of experience with these new TLDs and an entire generation of internet evolution between then and now, we’re interested to see what companies will do with the second wave of TLDs from DotBrand, and what use cases they’ll find for their brand domain—from e-commerce to social media. Whatever they are, we think we’ll see a whole new wave of creative uses of DotBrands, on top of more of what’s worked already. 

If you are thinking about getting your own DotBrand domain extension, whether to secure your brand or get a new domain to use as the face of your business, reach out to us. As experts in domain name management, we’ll help guide you through all the steps ICANN has for new DotBrand applicants and help you make sure you secure your brand name as a new TLD. 

Click here to find out more.

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