Domain Expansion Shows No Signs of Slowing
The latest Q42025 domain name results published by Domain Name Industry Brief reveals continuing growth across the global domain name landscape – a signal that brands must stay vigilant in both their domain strategy and brand protection.
Domain Registrations Keep Growing
At the end of 2025, total domain name registrations across all top-level domains reached 386.9 million, up 2.2 % quarter-on-quarter and 6.2 % year-over-year.
For brand owners and it/security teams, this continual increase means more potential for confusion, infringement, and malicious registrations mimicking established brands.
Key takeaway: Domain growth isn’t slowing. The expansion of generic TLDs and ccTLDs means brands must rethink defensive portfolios and monitor beyond traditional extensions like .com and .net.
.com/.net Still Dominate - But Don’t Ignore Others
The classic TLDs, .com and .net, now total 173.5 million registrations, with a 75 % combined renewal rate in Q4 2025.
That’s steady, but the new gTLD space is especially dynamic:
- New gTLDs saw an 6 % increase quarter-on-quarter, now totalling 48 million domains registered!
- However, renewal rates for new gTLDs remain low (about 31 %), which reflects registrations driven largely by promotions or experimentation rather than long-term use.
For brands, this means:
- .com and .net remain core to strategic protection, but
- expanding domain portfolios into secondary TLDs can prevent abusive registrations while securing brand reach across emerging namespaces.
Country Codes Matter Too
Country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) grew modestly to 145.6 million registrations, and renewal rates in many ccTLDs remain strong where data is available.
This highlights a critical point for global brands: localised domain presence isn’t just marketing. It’s risk mitigation. ccTLDs often serve as targets for copycat sites, phishing attempts, and regional scams aiming to impersonate trusted brands.
What This Means for Brandsec Clients
Brandsec’s commitment has always been to protect brand integrity across the domain space – from registration and renewal strategy to abuse monitoring and takedowns. The broad trends in Q4 2025 reaffirm three priorities:
1. Complete Domain Coverage
With TLDs growing and domain count growing, defensive registration strategies must extend beyond .com/.net to include new GTLDs and key ccTLDs relevant to your business footprint.
2. Monitoring and Renewal Discipline
High renewal rates in legacy TLDs show brands value ownership. But lower rates in new gTLDs indicate potential vulnerability windows. A rigid renewal calendar prevents brand loss and opportunistic acquisition.
Looking Ahead
Growing domain registrations reflect the internets continued expansion – but with that growth comes risk. The increase of domains, especially in new gTLDs and ccTLDs, means attackers have more “hideouts” to exploit your brand.
At Brandsec, we help you navigate this complexity – reach out and see how we can help you managed and protect your brands online.
About brandsec
brandsec is a team of highly experienced domain name management and online brand protection experts. We provide corporate domain name management and brand enforcement services, helping brands eliminate phishing platforms across the internet. Supporting some of the largest brands in the region, we offer innovative solutions to combat threats across multiple industries.
