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Alphabet selling Google Domains assets to Squarespace

• P3L 3y ago
  At least Google allowed me to pay in BRL, porkbun and others use just USD, with taxes and converting I'll pay a lot more for domains now... Well, stick with Brazilian domains now, that's a shame.
• t-writescode 3y ago
  To the various people saying they’ll transfer their domains away, why is this bad that they transfer to another registrar company? Is there something concerning about Squarespace?
  • paulgb 3y ago
    Price and features. Squarespace charges $20/year for a .com vs $12 on google and less than that elsewhere. I haven’t used squarespace but I also imagine they don’t have as much of a power-user appeal, given that DNS is not their main product.
  • cobertos 3y ago
    Registrars in general have many failure modes. Customer service nightmares (stakes being high if you lose an important domain, either through error or social engineering), malicious behavior (NetworkSolutions sniffing searches to buy domains[1], WhoIs privacy shell companies used to steal domain ownership, Unregistry increasing some of their new gTLDs by 500+%[2]), stability problems are all non-rare occurances. It's hard to trust a new registrar when it's so easy to fuck over customers [1]: They're mentioned in this article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running [2]: Can't find the article anymore, it was like, 2015.
    • t-writescode 3y ago
      Sure; but, we're talking about Squarespace specifically. Why are they problematic? And, how are they problematic for someone that decided Google was a trustworthy company to register their domains with, knowing their history to kill all of their products?
      • cobertos 3y ago
        Sorry, my answer was for why transferring to _any_ registrar is a problem. It involves a lot of trust built up over time. I don't know SquareSpace's business dealings, but I'm sure many others who were on Google Domains don't too, and will need to build the same trust. Google Domains has been around longer than their more recent reputation of frequently killing things. It also felt "complete". It worked (just maintain it) and people liked it, why kill it? It felt stable. But apparently everyone misjudged. But that's also why I personally am no longer on Gmail, Google Drive, Google itself, etc. I have found replacements.
  • WillPostForFood 3y ago
    1: Price (66% increase in price for no additional value) 2: Uncertainty around Squarespace's technical ability. Are they going to be a rock solid DNS provider? When DNS is down it is no fun. I left a smaller registrar because they couldn't handle large DDoS attacks (we weren't targets, but were affected).
    • ipaddr 3y ago
      Use dns at your cloud or webspace provider. Digital ocean offers this. I've used it to point a domain to other servers not connect to digital ocean.
  • MrStonedOne 3y ago
    [dead]
  • omoikane 3y ago
    I tried finding pricing info on Squarespace's site and it just wasn't as easy to find compared to some other sites. I also tried finding how they were doing previously by searching for "domain name registrar market share", and they don't seem to rank pretty highly there either[1]. So that wasn't particularly reassuring. Squarespace feels like an unknown to me because I don't know why they were selected and when the domain will move, so I transferred my domain away just now. This way, the registrar and transfer date are both within my control. [1] On the other hand, Google Domains appears to consistently rank in the top 10 for market share and they still want to give it up, so maybe market share doesn't mean anything.
• Sunspark 3y ago
  Amazing. Even a low-effort paid stream for Google meets the graveyard.
• brycewray 3y ago
  https://archive.is/YCFbt https://archive.is/YCFbt
• fasteddie 3y ago
  Another headstone in the google graveyard. This one doesn't make any sense to me, either, unless there are weird regulatory issues they want to avoid since it seemed like a very popular registrar. Or maybe they just didn't want to staff any limited customer support team.
  • meepmorp 3y ago
    At least they're not just ending service and telling people to find a new registrar and transfer their stuff.
  • theonlybutlet 3y ago
    Financial metrics were probably meh.
  • johnfernow 3y ago
    > This one doesn't make any sense to me I'm also confused, it's a paid product! If it wasn't making enough money, why didn't they just raise the price? It already wasn't the cheapest name registrar, so I don't think people were selecting it solely based on cost (I went with it because of the free 100 email aliases included, but others liked the clean layout and simplicity compared to some other options.) I get why they kill free things that don't make them money, but it seems very strange with a paid product, especially when, as others have said, they have GCP, which will presumably require a third party registrar in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36346941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36346941
    • havnagiggle 3y ago
      Sustainable businesses are so last century...
    • eddythompson80 3y ago
      It's not a traditional "paid product" where you can reduce cost, increase efficiency and/or take advantage of economy of scale. There are foxed ICANN fees per domain, most registrar add a markup on that, sell ownership data, auction popular expired domains, squat good names, etc. Google Domains (and Cloudflare) main spiel is they sell domains at cost as they make their money else where. It was intentionally a business that was never meant to make money. It wasn't "the cheapest registrar" because they didn't offer "signup deals", just like cloudflare. Other cheaper registrar offer a signup deal for $1 or $2 a domain (subtext: renews for $24 dollars the next year)
• wildrhythms 3y ago
  This is so disappointing. I never had an issue with Google Domains. It offered free WHOIS protection, easy to buy a domain and set it up. Nothing fancy. No BS fees. Shame
  • veave 3y ago
    I like porkbun.com for the same experience.
  • _bizg 3y ago
    The "free WHOIS protection" is something they have to offer, if they[or anyone else] wants to do business in Europe and be GDPR compliant.
  • bombcar 3y ago
    Most registrars offer free privacy settings now, even Epik. Maybe Godaddy doesn’t.
    • wildrhythms 3y ago
      They offer that now, but back in 2014 when Google Domains launched many registrars offered it with an additional fee (like $1 per mo or some other ridiculous pittance). I admit I don't know the GDPR ramifications of such a thing now.
  • WorldMaker 3y ago
    I've been happy with service from Hover.com. It's from "old internet infrastructure company" Tucows and seems incentivized to deliver a good service because it is an infrastructure tool from an infrastructure company.
• JPHPJ 3y ago
  Classic Google
• trafficante 3y ago
  I’ve been a (paying) customer of Google Domains for quite a number of years now. Better options have arisen for my needs over the years (largely family name domain parking and email aliases/forwarding), but it honestly hasn’t been worth my time to bother rejiggering everything and transferring it all out. I guess now it is? How bad is Squarespace for this sort of “set it and forget it” kinda thing?
• wsgeorge 3y ago
  How long until the "don't trust Google to not kill a product" feeling becomes so widespread it begins to hurt them? I don't know any historical precedents...
  • gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 3y ago
    It's already happening for years now. Just look at Stadia.
  • PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    It's now a self fulfilling prophecy. No one used Google Stadia because Google kills things with little warning, which subsequently caused Google to kill Stadia. Google will never be able to launch another product.
    • treesciencebot 3y ago
      I wouldn't really say that for any of the new products that people actually wanted to use. Including Google Domains (even if it might not be an effective use of workforce for Alphabet).
    • eddythompson80 3y ago
      no one used Google Stadia because the business model and service architecture made no sense for a new service and for a company that has a habit of abandoning project that aren't an immediate runaway success stories. Google legitimately thought they can enter a brand new market, and treat it like they are already the largest player in it. They duped themselves by honestly believing that "this is not the gaming market, this the the Cloud Gaming market". They did get most of the "cloud gaming" enthusiasts on board. All 200 of them. They weren't like XBox or Nvidia who just had to go to gaming companies and strike a deal or ask for permission to stream their existing games. They were a new "console", you needed to develop for stadia. They needed to pay millions to incentivize companies to put the effort to port their existing games to stadia. Those companies had no customer for the "stadia console" version of their game other than Google sine no one has a "stadia console" or any way otherwise to play that game. Those tactics may work for Sony or Nintendo or _maybe_ Microsoft. But not for a nobody in the business that literally has no user-base, no games, no history. They had nothing, and tried to pull a "we're the leaders in this market we can do anything we want and everyone will have no option but to take it"
• gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 3y ago
  Jeez, could they have possibly given less notice? Now I have to scramble to migrate all of my domains away from Google/Squarespace this weekend. Damn it. I have zero desire to be in business with Squarespace.
  • Sunspark 3y ago
    Why do you feel the need to do this? Do you anticipate that all your traffic will now be routed to the Kremlin?
    • gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 3y ago
      I don't like businesses I haven't specifically chosen managing my digital affairs and buyouts put me in that position. Plus I don't trust Squarespace at all. Fortunately this is the last Google product I was still using, so after this migration I will be 100% google free, which will be a great day.
      • Sunspark 3y ago
        Sounds like you had a very deep relationship with Google that went beyond just a simple registration of a domain name. I don't know Squarespace as a company, but looking at the wikipedia entry, they are a publicly-traded American company on the NYSE and appear to have removed websites that promoted bigotry or hate, etc. so how bad could they really be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squarespace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squarespace
        • gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 3y ago
          > ...appear to have removed websites that promoted bigotry or hate, etc. This is exactly the problem. I don't go to a domain registrar to be my parent and/or make social decisions for me. I go there to register domains and manage DNS records, that's it. That Squarespace management felt the need to assert themselves into that process with social contagion related matters is deeply concerning and frankly, a deal breaker for me. It'd be like AT&T cancelling your phone service because they didn't like the content of your conversations.
• petercooper 3y ago
  Does anyone know whether or not this ties in with Google Registry (a.k.a. Charleston Road Registry)? That's the entity that owns GTLDs like .app and .dev. I'm going to guess Google is hanging on to that part of it.
  • CydeWeys 3y ago
    Google Registry is unaffected so far.
    • cobertos 3y ago
      Do you have a source for this? I'm really curious on this for .dev domains, and how it will affect the nicer pricing Google Domains offered against all other registrars for their own internal registry domains (And you seem really knowledgeable in this space, heh)
      • CydeWeys 3y ago
        The source is I am the tech lead / engineering manager of the Google Registry team.
        • cobertos 3y ago
          Lmao, thanks, must be quite the interesting field
• fragmede 3y ago
  That makes no sense. Just as long as they don't shut down Keep, I'll stay sane though.
• kelnos 3y ago
  I guess at least this time they didn't outright kill it, and is transferring customers to another registrar...
  • wildrhythms 3y ago
    ... and the new registrar (Squarespace) is increasing pricing for seemingly no additional features. >Under the terms of the agreement, Squarespace will honor all existing Google Domains customers' renewal prices for at least 12 months following the closing of the transaction https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670 https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670 Google Domains - $12/yr Squarespace - $20/yr
• rogerkirkness 3y ago
  I was a Google die hard, everything except Reader that they killed made sense. At this point it seems like the CFO is in charge and no good product is safe.
  • nocoiner 3y ago
    Reader probably made “sense” too for the axe-wielding CFO, in that I can’t imagine it generated any meaningful revenue. But I also can’t imagine it consumed much in the way of resources either… I still use Gmail, but that’s it for me among Google’s offerings. (I can’t easily transition away from that due to using my email address for several hundred login credentials, though I suppose I really should begin that project.) But certainly for anything new, I have no confidence in any Google products, paid or unpaid.
    • alphex 3y ago
      Reader was impacting ad revenue on websites.
• juliand 3y ago
  Thank god my dependency on Google services keeps going down with every year that passes
• maherbeg 3y ago
  What are the top recommendations to migrate to these days?
  • petecooper 3y ago
    At the risk of spamming this thread: Porkbun has been excellent for me.
    • brycewray 3y ago
      Agree re Porkbun.
    • elforce002 3y ago
      Care to explain why did you pick porkburn? We have to switch to a different provider since google is sunsetting this product.
      • petecooper 3y ago
        Sure, happy to. It's a bit long-winded, though. For context, I'm in the UK and I'm registered as a business. I was perfectly happy with Gandi until 2016 or so. Political changes in my country made dealing with the EU more complex and potentially more expensive, and I needed to to move my ~100 domain portfolio elsewhere. I originally started looking for a UK domain registrar[1] to keep the UK sales tax (VAT) simple and avoid the credit card fees & arbitrary conversion rate for an overseas transaction. I spent a Saturday or so scouting out options, factoring in: * purchase and renewal price, with VAT * overall look and feel of admin panels * workflow of (and feedback on) transferring domains in and out, and other admin tasks * how likely the company was to be eaten by another registrar I've tended to have my web + email stuff split across multiple orgs to reduce instances of single point of failure: * domains at one registrar, so I can keep track * DNS at Cloudflare (reliably fastest at DNSPerf), all but one domain is on the the free plan with Cloudflare features disabled (i.e. purely DNS). * hosting at a build-your-own cloud provider (DigitalOcean and recently Hetzner) * email at managed provider (Fastmail currently) Ultimately, UK registrars turned out quite expensive compared to north American registrars, with no clear advantage. Even with the VAT being reclaimable, the sums worked out in favour of looking overseas. I found Porkbun when I was looking for off-piste domain registrars for a couple of ccTLD domains I had. There's a single .ag which is the most expensive to renew, and comparatively few registrars support it. I ran the numbers on the portfolio of domains for each of the off-piste registrars if I moved all the domains in…and that was expensive. I told myself I could manage >1 domain registrar if I'm organised, so I re-ran the numbers with a split between the exotic TLDs and the boring ones. I was left with Namecheap & Porkbun for the boring (cheaper) domains. I registered 3x domains at each -- all burners, a ccTLD + a gTLD + their cheapest 99c offering -- and ran some tests. I ignored the SPOF stuff above since these were r&d domains, effectively. The tests included: * how easy it was to administer via the control panel, including transfers in and out * testing the support team with a minor, non-documented issue * how much junk email I'd end up with * the overall 'feel' of the registrar Namecheap didn't fare well, sadly. The ccTLD I set up was transferred out (to Porkbun), but remained in the Namecheap control panel. I deliberately chose a .uk domain to test this with, since the process is a little whacky[2]. To their credit, Porkbun handled it seamlessly, exactly as their kb doc explained. Namecheap continued to send my expiry warnings about the domain (which was safe at Porkbun), and a support ticket was not able to have it removed from my account at Namecheap. Minor, granted, but enough to put me off. Porkbun was mostly better out of the gate. I set up a CAA record on my burner domain (at Porkbun) and it broke DNS completely. I opened a ticket, explained what I'd done, and had a prompt, courteous reply back within a few hours. I'd used the wrong CAA syntax, which clobbered the DNS. When I fixed that, it worked perfectly. This not-in-the-kb support ticket stuff was not planned, but it worked out really well. I moved all-but-one of my domains to Porkbun. I'd move the .ag domain if they supported it, but they don't yet. The .ag is languishing at Gandi, and there's a support ticket open with them (2 days and counting) to get an auth code to transfer out since it's not shown on the domain control panel, and with their upcoming price changes I'm keen to get that out before the PE folks turn it into a wasteland. So, Porkbun: it works, they have a good experience that fits my workflow, and they don't have the upselling bullshit that GoDaddy and Namecheap seem to peddle. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057987 [2] https://kb.porkbun.com/article/180-how-to-transfer-a-uk-domain-to-porkbun https://kb.porkbun.com/article/180-how-to-transfer-a-uk-doma...
• brycewray 3y ago
  I've been using Google Domains for a few years (previously used Namecheap); but, a few months ago, I took a domain I don't actively use and transferred it to Porkbun after reading so many positive comments on HN about that registrar. I was thinking, "Well, you never know about Google, so I may as well see how it goes, just in case." Have, indeed, been very pleased with Porkbun. The article says it'll be some months before this deal goes through, but... *Later edit*: Decided to go ahead and transfer the other domains there, too. Done.
  • _smfg 3y ago
    Porkbun is an excellent choice, I love their support! I wish they supported .ca domains (the only reason I'm using NameSilo) but when I asked in the past, they said they have no future plans to.
    • Porkbun 3y ago
      Just wanted to let you know that we recently onboarded .ca! We're slowly growing out our ccTLD portfolio too so if there are others folks have been waiting on please let us know so we can prioritized.
      • _smfg 3y ago
        That's so exciting! I'll be slowly switching my .ca domains there.
      • FBISurveillance 3y ago
        Thanks! It would be great to get support of .vc, .ky, and .to.
        • Porkbun 3y ago
          I've added them to my onboarding list to research!
      • benhurmarcel 3y ago
        I'm currently not considering Porkbun because you don 't have .fr, it would be a great option otherwise.
• latexr 3y ago
  > In an unexpected announcement today, Google Domains is “winding down following a transition period,” (…) Google killing a product should no longer be a surprise to anyone. It’s the opposite of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition: everybody expects it. https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty_Python)#:~:text=The%20sketches%20are%20notable%20for%20their%20principal%20catchphrase%2C%20%22Nobody%20expects%20the%20Spanish%20Inquisition%21%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty...
  • juujian 3y ago
    I guess the only surprise here is that they're selling it.
    • Kye 3y ago
      It's probably some contractual obligation as a registrar.
    • CydeWeys 3y ago
      The product isn't being sold, just the domain names. And you can't exactly just delete millions of domain names, it'd be an ICANN contract violation (as well as just being a horrible idea and causing endless amounts of harm to the Internet as a whole).
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  • panarky 3y ago
    Microsoft has killed more products than Google.
    • Dalewyn 3y ago
• panda88888 3y ago
  Any recommendations on registrars? I may have to move a couple of domains off Google Domains / Squarespace. Edit: I am located in the US.
  • petecooper 3y ago
    Porkbun has been excellent for me.
  • statico 3y ago
    Namecheap is great.
    • slig 3y ago
      I would recommend reading this thread before choosing them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506581
  • focusedone 3y ago
    nearlyfreespeech
  • SXX 3y ago
    UPD: Yeah I wasn't avare they been bought out recently. That's really unfortunate to hear. Gandi served me well for last 10 years: * Plenty of zones supported with reasonable prices. * Have team account access for companies. * In case of emergency there is an option to renew domains registered with Gandi even without being owner.
    • ROTMetro 3y ago
      Just yesterday there was a post here not too thrilled about how Gandi is handling their latest price increases and their dropped support for 'free included' email? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36321783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36321783
    • panda88888 3y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation. Looks like Gandi got bought out recently. Not sure if it’s for better or worse—will do some more research.
• ramesh31 3y ago
  Does this mean GCP users will have to use a third party registrar now? What a joke.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• rafaelturk 3y ago
  This is so disappointing, shame, Google Domains was an epic super simple product..
• science4sail 3y ago
  Related post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36346619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36346619
• waboremo 3y ago
  Now would be a good time for Cloudflare to announce they've (finally) added .app and .dev support. Nonetheless, Squarespace isn't bad but I found their domain pricing to be overpriced to target the specific market that doesn't really care about domain pricing they just want their domain and Squarespace set up at once. I can't see myself sticking around post the grace period mentioned.
  • brycewray 3y ago
    I briefly transferred one of my domains from Google Domains to Cloudflare, but at least at that time CF required the domain to use its DNS. While that's generally not an issue with me because I use other CF services, I felt it might limit me too much down the line so I transferred the domain back to Google after the 60-day waiting period. Ah, well.
    • waboremo 3y ago
      Yep still the case. Good if you're already using cloudflare and therefore the at cost pricing can wind up saving you a bit, otherwise you would be better served with the likes of porkbun or namecheap. Gandi used to be another before it was sold.
  • rhaway84773 3y ago
    I like Squarespace’s domain hosting. The only problem is indeed that they will be a couple of bucks more than competitors. That being said, they seem the most stable of the companies in this space that is not otherwise egregiously bad in some way or the other, so I’ve been willing to pay those few bucks more. For the key domains I own it adds up to around $20-$30 more a year which isn’t bad for the greater piece of mind IMO.
    • whateveracct 3y ago
      That stability point is key. You don't want nonsense from your registrar.
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• gumby 3y ago
  Sold for 1x or 2x revenue. Not that great a business. But 8 years in "beta"??
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• oldstrangers 3y ago
  Wow, I really can't trust and rely on Google for anything can I? This is absurd. I have so many domains I'll have to move over. The UX at Squarespace is just terrible and I want nothing to do with it.
• danjoredd 3y ago
  I've been using them for my domains for a couple of years now. This is a bit upsetting. I guess I will transfer my domains to name cheap or something
• jacooper 3y ago
  Didn't they just introduce the .zip TLD?
  • CydeWeys 3y ago
    That's Google Registry.
• dangerboysteve 3y ago
  (in the voice of David Attenborough) And thus starts the great domain migration of 2023. 10 million fledgling domains begin their search for safety in new homes, far away from the coming impending onslaught of upsells and limited time offer emails. Some will find refuge in Cloudflare, others, not so.
  • akpa1 3y ago
    I moved a domain away from Cloudflare a month or so ago, only to be faced with this. Just my luck.
    • _smfg 3y ago
      Is there something wrong with Cloudflare?
      • akpa1 3y ago
        I have unrelated issues with Cloudflare becuase they're a single entity that controls access to far too much of the internet, in my opinion. In this case specifically, I moved the domain away since they want you to pay extra money to use custom DNS servers.
        • tomklein 3y ago
          iirc, custom DNS at CF refers to using your own subdomains as name servers for CF instead of the regular *.ns.cloudflare.com. Basically a form of whitelabelling. Specifying 3rd party name servers as your domain’s name server was (still is?) not possible with Cloudflare Registrar. (Disclaimer: I work there)
          • lpgauth 3y ago
            It’s pretty crazy that you can’t setup a custom 3rd party name server. I can’t even transfer my domain from one Cloudflare account to another without transferring my domain to another registrar…
• crazygringo 3y ago
  Can we hopefully avoid the worn trope of Google killing products in this thread? Because it's not being killed, it's being transferred to another company. (If this reporting is correct.) Which is something to celebrate, not criticize. With Reader/Stadia/etc., wouldn't users prefer that it had been transferred rather than killed?
  • WillPostForFood 3y ago
    There is little difference here between killed and sold. Squarespace charges 66% more per year for .com domain, so it is going to make sense to transfer out for most people. Same result as if Google killed it, just a slightly longer window to go through the hassle of transferring.
  • CameronNemo 3y ago
    For stuff like stadia, which has no real identical products, a transfer would indeed be nicer. But the whole sell of the google domains product is that you are getting a domain from Google. If it is no longer from google, the product is largely indistinguishable from those from other large cloud providers like Cloudflare or AWS (or more boutique or focused offerings like Porkbun and Namecheap).
  • lozenge 3y ago
    I mean, they're domains, you can't kill them. This is like saying Photos isn't killed because they didn't delete old photos when you exceed your new low quota.
    • resolutebat 3y ago
      That's very different from "killed".
  • eshnil 3y ago
    They're transferring the user's assets, the domains, and killing the product (Google Domains).
• donmcronald 3y ago
  Google is one of the only DynDNS providers that do one secret per hostname rather than a shared secret. I wonder if that’s going to get killed too.
  • proactivesvcs 3y ago
    Afraid.org does, too. https://freedns.afraid.org/ https://freedns.afraid.org/
• WillPostForFood 3y ago
  for .com Google Domains - $12/yr (includes private whois) Squarespace - $20/yr (includes private whois) Yeah, total rip off. There are plenty of Registrars that are at $12 (AWS), or less (Porkbun $9.73). Google is double screwing it's users. First by selling them off, then by selling them to a price gouger.
  • brycewray 3y ago
    I had a sinking feeling when I read this in TFA: > Squarespace said it will honor Google Domains customers’ renewal prices for at least 12 months following the close of the deal. ... knowing it meant Renewal Sticker Shock, eventually, for those who stay.
    • qodeninja 3y ago
      lol what a horrible customer acquisition strategy.
  • andersrs 3y ago
    Cloudflare $9.15/ year Everyone hates them but they're providing the a competitive deal because the domains are a lead for the read of their business.
    • qodeninja 3y ago
      why does everyone hate them
• donatj 3y ago
  I knew better than to trust Google, and yet... I switched everything to Google Domains because the UI was very clean and the attempted upsells were minimal. I had moved from GoDaddy to Name.com years prior for similar reasons but Name burned my good will. Is there a service that replaces Google Domains in simplicity and not pushing add-ons?
  • mastry 3y ago
    Try hover.com. They have never sent me spam and upsell attempts are very minimal during purchase (mostly for their email service, I think).
  • iudqnolq 3y ago
    I use porkbun.com. Their site is simple. When you click the "Checkout" button you're taken to a confirmation page with a "Continue to Billing" button. There are discreet links you can click to add email/web hosting, but no interstitials to click through. Edit: fixed autocorrect of domain name
    • LordShredda 3y ago
      ...what?
    • ashkulz 3y ago
      I guess you meant to say porkbun?
    • SethKinast 3y ago
      ... Freudian slip?
      • whateveracct 3y ago
        autocorrect is a helluva drug
  • schlauerfox 3y ago
    Cloudflare is minimal. There are arguments to be made about their centralized control of much of the internet infra, but it's minimal and low cost.
• freewizard 3y ago
  It seems Domain is part of Cloud in Alphabet's revenue breakdown, which recently turned profit with just $191m in 23Q1. Not sure the exact term and accounting operation, but this sale of $180m may just double that line of income?
• renewiltord 3y ago
  This is interesting. Part of the fact that Google owned Domains was that GCP domain validation was smooth when doing this. Now, we probably have to do the slow motion validation. Bit annoying, honestly. But, ah well.
• w10-1 3y ago
  I'm sad to see this, not b/c I like Google, but because domain names are otherwise a manipulative space, and Google was saving us from that. Domain service - name registry - is a weird market because it includes cross-subsidizing businesses and the information has value (and people will pay for anonymity to avoid hassle), so buy decisions aren't just price/performance. Google and Cloudflare can offer it near cost just to build goodwill in their clients (i.e., to save them from predation). Cloudflare promises for renewals to only pass through their costs, which makes sense (they make back their customer acquisition cost on the first purchase). What's the business model of others like porkbun? By hypothesis, you have to pay more to go without the cross-subsidy. If cost is on par, then you might expect them to be marketing the information or to customers somehow. Perhaps just making it back on anonymity charges? At a minimum, the company would need to have some real reputational concerns about maintaining good relations with customers. E.g., with porkbun, it's super-cute in an ostensibly-benign jurisdiction, but it's a completely hidden LLC who's privacy concerns seem limited only to WHOIS anonymity. What exactly prevents them (or any successor in interest) from misusing the information they have? On the internet, associating real people with IP's will always be a key goal of governments and criminals, and yet domain name services are a free-for-all with no underlying privacy guarantees.
  • andersrs 3y ago
    I have a conspiracy theory that a lot of domain registration companies like GoDaddy sell the domain name searches to squatters (sometimes themselves). The larger cloud companies don't have so much incentive do this. I always look up domains from the terminal.
    • cocoa19 3y ago
      I was disturbed by learning squatters no longer just sell domains for big bucks, some of them started to offer them for rent.
      • andersrs 3y ago
        That's awful. So someone pays them them, builds a website on their property and they still have you by the balls. I guess you'd only rent to add a redirect over to a new domain. I've just tried negotiating with a squatter. I'm trying to resurrect a web game with a few thousand players which the original dev neglected. I've rebuilt it on another domain but the community have game data stored in the browser localStorage against the original site. I offered US$200 and was told no - not even a counter offer. I believe they see the domains as lotto tickets - it's in their interests to let a lot of the negotiations fall though so they can win big on a few massive deals.
• orbz 3y ago
  The thing I take biggest offense to is the fact that I hear about this from Bloomberg before Google making any outreach. Also no mention of if Google Cloud Domains is impacted.
  • abawany 3y ago
    Yep, I still don't see anything about this on domains.google or domains.google.com (as I frantically start searching for alternate registrars.)
  • CydeWeys 3y ago
    It's materially significant information being made public. Of course it'll be released first in a press release.
  • tech234a 3y ago
    There is a banner on the support site: https://support.google.com/domains https://support.google.com/domains
  • orbz 3y ago
    Update Google Cloud Domains likely impacted: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1669726481130434563 https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1669726481130434563
• wg0 3y ago
  Anyone knows how domain name pricing works? Why some domains are cheaper in first year and then 10 times expensive the next year? Can a domain registrar exploit the situation where they know you have a good business around that domain so now the domain price per year is let's say 5,000 dollars?
  • thesuitonym 3y ago
    I'm not an expert here by any means, but my understanding is that some TLDs are just more expensive, but for the first year they're sold at a discount to get you in the door.
  • dsgnr 3y ago
    I work in the domain industry and there are a few answers. A company can be a registry for a tld, like how Google owns the .app tld. That is different than a registrar, like godaddy, who resells the names in namespaces provided by registries. The registries set the price for that tld and other things like requiring .app namespace to be secure, so you need HTTPS and an SSL certificate for your website to load on most browsers. Due to these SSL requirements, domain forwarding isnt supported. another example of requirements set by a registry is the .AI namespace which is more expensive by default (over $125 a year last i looked)and requires a minimum of 2 years when you register. Registries also charge more for names they think are worth more. So if you see a premium .app name that cost $2,000 per year, that is because the registry (Google in the case of .app) decided the name was valuable (probably because its a short common noun) and they want a lot more per year for it. Ive never heard of this happening after someone already had it for cheaper, so no rug pull type situations. As for why some names renew for more than when you first get them, its a strategy for registrars (not registries) to attract new customers. Companies give items away at a discount or loss to get you into their ecosystem and then make profits at renewals. It’s like getting a free smartphone from a phone company and then paying more for the service than if you had owned the phone and not got it free.
    • CydeWeys 3y ago
      > Due to these SSL requirements, domain forwarding isnt supported. That's just a limitation on some registrar. Domain forwarding absolutely does work on .app; you simply need to configure an SSL certificate on the web server serving the redirect for the forwarding.
• DazWilkin 3y ago
  I'm a long-term, several domains user of Google Domains and disappointed to learn of this sale. Several others have suggested porkbun and I'm interested to see that it provides an API (https://porkbun.com/api/json/v3/documentation https://porkbun.com/api/json/v3/documentation). Do folks have experience with this API? I have a hacky a solution to update Google Domains Dynamic DNS record but would value a more functional API to update DNS records. Had I known about this before today, I may have migrated my domains to porkbun for this reason alone.
  • Porkbun 3y ago
    We previously built probably an equally hacky DDNS client using Python, an archive of it is hosted on GitHub under PorkbunDomains. Unfortunately we haven't been able to keep up with dev for it. I know there's support for our API on the current GitHub hosted version of ddclient, however I haven't had a chance to get it working and a tutorial out, but it's an option.
  • ipython 3y ago
    For no frills dns and dynamic dns update via api, try hurricane electrics dns service: dns.he.net. Not a registrar but free dns hosting. Happy customer for more than a decade now.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• duud 3y ago
  Dynadot is a solid registrar for anyone looking for a replacement.
  • timbit42 3y ago
    Seems a bit pricey.
    • duud 3y ago
      Regularly voted amongst the best registrars by domainers. $7.88 for .coms with coupon currently... https://www.namepros.com/threads/your-favorite-registrar-of-the-year-2022.1284436/ https://www.namepros.com/threads/your-favorite-registrar-of-...
• type0 3y ago
  They should sell gmail to someone who can actually manage it and make it better instead of sucking out the last juice of users' data.
• SkyPuncher 3y ago
  I think this one officially concludes “don’t trust Google for anything”. Maybe I’m not familiar enough with GCP, but why is this not just rolled into GCP? Is it even possible to buy a domain on GCP when this rolls off?
  • BehindTheMath 3y ago
    GCP has Cloud Domains. It's unclear to me what the future of that is.
    • CydeWeys 3y ago
      There isn't one.
    • SkyPuncher 3y ago
      Well…that’s even more damning. Why did they not just roll this into cloud domains? Perhaps they have different audiences? I guess if your on GCP, you wouldn’t need to use a non-GCP domain product.
  • paulgb 3y ago
    As a user of GCP it reads as a huge red flag to me that they offloaded this instead of rolling it into GCP. Domains are a pretty core part of cloud infrastructure. The fact that they could have brought domains under GCP and didn’t makes me wonder what they know about the future of GCP that isn’t public yet.
• solarkraft 3y ago
  I never understood them being a domain registrar in the first place. Maybe as a back-up to secure an important internet core function. The seems quite (very) high.
• stevesearer 3y ago
  Hmm. I’m wondering how Search Console properties that were verified by domain purchase in Google Domains will be affected.
• kevmarsden 3y ago
  Ugh. I hate Google, but for years I've been recommending Google Domains. It's time to transfer my 19 domains elsewhere.
• smashah 3y ago
  I literally dont understand why they did this. Their product was fine as is so didn't need more features, maintenance burden minimal. Isn't google domains just a UI for their GCP domains product? Will that get shut down? Will all my domains suddenly have a pointless premium on them? Cloudflare, please gain tld parity asap!
  • sam0x17 3y ago
    It wasn't a "google scale" product. That's how FANG thinks
    • dylan604 3y ago
      Or the project didn't have a high enough ranking evangelist
    • hnfong 3y ago
      Interesting how you left an "A" out..
• matteska 3y ago
  Does this sale include Google Cloud's "Cloud Domains" feature? https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs https://cloud.google.com/domains/docs
  • mehmetkose 3y ago
    SS will be an "exclusive domain provider" for three years and stay connected in some way to Google services I guess.
• xtracto 3y ago
  This is bullshit... i use Google domains, particularly the easy email redirect. Google domains is a PAID product... for xxxx sake, I already didn't trust google, but this is the nail in their coffin for me.
  • johnfernow 3y ago
    Same (I also paid for it because of the numerous easy email aliases). Like, it's a domain name registrar! What was their objective and plan and where did this go wrong? Out of the 2,650+ active registrars, it's the fourth most popular one! It obviously was never going to be a massive money maker, but even if they had to raise prices, between their easy email aliases and clean interface, even though there were cheaper options, this easily could have been a small but profitable service for them. Also, it kept me in the Google ecosystem (I use Gmail with their email aliases.) I don't know how this product realistically could have been more successful for what it is, and I don't know why you'd bother killing a service that could pay for itself, especially now that I (and the many individuals and businesses affected by this) don't even trust Google's paid services. There are over 10 million registered domains through Google Domains! That's a ton of paying customers who will be reluctant to pay for anything Google's selling in the future. Doesn't matter how good of a service Google provides if they're just going to kill it.
• branon 3y ago
  I'm feeling better about being a Gandi customer now, huehuehue
• munbun 3y ago
  Sad. I'm surprised Domains wasn't rolled into Google Workspace.
• the__alchemist 3y ago
  Does anyone have an ELI5 for how to proceed? I have several websites that use this. What's the course of action required here, if any?
  • dylan604 3y ago
    I would assume nothing if you are okay with being part of the squarespace family. If you have issues with squarespace, then that's another story.
• omoikane 3y ago
  https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670 https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670
• netule 3y ago
  I missed this story earlier today. I appreciate it popping up even if it is a dupe. Guess I'll have to transfer a bunch of domains now.
• skewbone 3y ago
  Does this impact Google apps (or whatever their grandfathered personal email hosting/google drive is called now)? I hope it's just the registration component, but I think I should plan the move to another email/file sharing provider. EDIT: Looks it is answered here. We become customers of squarespace for that too, so I doubt it will be free after this. Time to plan the move. https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670 https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670
• sitkack 3y ago
  In my conversations with Google employees, no one actually wants to work there. There is little to no respect for the company. Turnover has been massive. Even folks that have been there for 5 years have 80% seniority. The problem is not leadership or management. It is the owners. It is Larry and Sergey.
• vineyardmike 3y ago
  I guess we know Google isn’t serious about Google Cloud any longer… I feel like this product is table stakes for a cloud. Does this mark a new transition for google leadership? Will google start to sell their unwanted businesses instead of just killing them?
  • bradleybuda 3y ago
    Google's enterprise-grade DNS is "Google Cloud DNS" [1]. It's not going anywhere. Google Domains is a consumer-grade product, in the sense that it is lacking most of the features (access control, bulk management) that a large company needs, though it was not lacking in stability / availability. And you could easily hook Google Domains up to Google Workspace to light up email for a small business. Feels like a good fit for Squarespace - lots of overlap with their target market. [1] https://cloud.google.com/dns https://cloud.google.com/dns
    • CJefferson 3y ago
      As you say, I found google domains + google workspace was enough for my needs. I am shocked they've sold to squarespace -- squarespace seems to have (from looking at their website) no interest, or experience, in just DNS hosting. Their website is all about hosting, I have my own hosting. I guess they must be planning (or already have, hidden somewhere) a similar service to google domains, but I'm certainly not risking my domains on that assumption.
      • morpheuskafka 3y ago
        Squarespace acts as a reseller for Google Workspace (for customers who start out by using their domain for hosting with them and want to add email/etc), so they already had a relationship with Google. It makes sense that they would want to sell domains to their customers, but IDK why they would want to buy all the existing domains that likely are not in the market for their hosting service.
    • cobertos 3y ago
      DNS is not registrar services. Comparing Google Domains to Google Cloud DNS is like comparing apples and oranges. Though it's true you'll usually want both if you're working with domains OR DNS. _Needing_ to interface with a 3rd party for a critical part of any web app or service feels like a step backward for Google's commitment to Cloud.
• wyclif 3y ago
  Google simply has no incentive to serve the customer who uses them for domain management. They make so much money from ads that they're far more concerned about their ad revenue than they are about money from paying customers.
  • 55555 3y ago
    Domain parking is valuable ad space. Surprised they are selling.
    • UnlockedSecrets 3y ago
      Would domain parking even be 1 millionth of what advertising google serves???
      • cobertos 3y ago
        Maybe not in its current form (disregarding the hyperbole). I'm more surprised that given Google's scale, they couldn't do it in a way that makes them much more money, but perhaps at the expense of ethics/user experience
  • DLA 3y ago
    True, but then why even go into the business? Could they not model out that this would never be a giant revenue stream and customers all the grief.
    • brycelarkin 3y ago
      Domain registration by itself isn’t a revenue stream if you’re charging base rates (which Google was doing). I think domain registration is to keep you in their cloud ecosystem.
      • kfarr 3y ago
        Same assumption here that it was a loss leader for cloud business, i guess it didn't pencil out
• eek2121 3y ago
  Me with 100+ domains with Google: chuckles I'm in danger! I should have known. I started a transition for most of my stuff to cloudflare anyway. I kind of figured this would come eventually.
  • ipaddr 3y ago
    You believe things will go better with cloudflare?
    • jahewson 3y ago
      Do you want to buy domains from an ad company or from a web infrastructure company?
    • re-thc 3y ago
      Cloudflare makes you use their DNS with the registrar so there's an incentive for them to keep it (bundling).
  • grayrest 3y ago
    I worked for Squarespace 2010-2012 and the focus from management was mainly on keeping customers happy. It's not like it's ad focused and there's a need to extract maximum value from the userbase. It's possible that's changed in the last decade but Anthony (CEO) was really into having a premium product and a quick glance at the about page shows that most of the senior leadership hasn't changed so I don't see why they'd change direction.
    • efficax 3y ago
      going public and focusing on building a "platform" has definitely changed sqsp, although i wouldn't say they don't care about the customer experience anymore.
    • WillPostForFood 3y ago
      I appreciate they don't have a dozen stupid upsells on domains like GoDaddy. But $20 a year is a straight ripoff.
• gigatexal 3y ago
  I am so pissed. F U Google. Now I’ve gotta transfer all my domains to Cloudflare. Ugh. How will this affect mx records? I’ve got my vanity domain acting as a front end to Google for work gmail and things?
  • cobertos 3y ago
    It shouldn't affect anything. Just transfer them as-is to another DNS provider. The IPs the MX records are pointing to aren't changing
• DLA 3y ago
  Yet another business Google bails on. Add that to the pile. Gee wonder why Google Cloud is getting smashed by AWS and Azure—maybe because nobody trusts Google to not flake out on that business or key products within it. They need some management changes!
  • jay_kyburz 3y ago
    Google seems to have bailed on Google Cloud. You should try and find something in the docs these days. When I first started using GAE 10 years ago it really felt like somebody lovingly crafted a nice solution to a complex problem. It's not that anymore.
    • cardy31 3y ago
      The company I work for is on GCP and I live in fear of seeing the “Google to shut down GCP by $now + ~2 years” headline.
      • jay_kyburz 3y ago
        I'm living that now. I will no longer be able to push changes to my Python 2.7 apps as of January. Instead of porting to Python 3, I'm porting away from Google.
        • afavour 3y ago
          I’ll blame Google for a lot but in this instance I think they’re right. Python 2.7 is EOL, they’d be foolish to keep running it indefinitely on the servers they’re responsible for.
        • delecti 3y ago
          Python 2.7 released 14 years ago. About 8.5 years ago (5+ years later), it was announced that Python 2.7 would be supported until 2020. You had over 5 years to prepare for it, and then Google supported it for another 3 years beyond even that generous warning.
• w-ll 3y ago
  I noticed my Chrome Canary install uBlock Origin has stopped working this last week. Any one else see the same?
• armatav 3y ago
  Holy awful
• sergiotapia 3y ago
  This may be the last straw for me trusting Google. I say this as a paying Google photos user and owner of a pixel 6. If they kill THIS nothing is off the table. Time to find alternatives and even switch phones. No more all-in-ones platforms. For a solid alternative I recommend Porkbun. They do just domains and nothing else, with a clean no bullshit UI.
  • kvathupo 3y ago
    Any good alternatives to Google Photos?
    • sergiotapia 3y ago
      I need to find one quick. We really use this a lot and auto share all pics between my wife and Is phone. We also really enjoy the auto tagging face feature. That's a must.
      • theSuda 3y ago
        Partner sharing, Face tagging, adding photos to albums based on faces.. these things are great. I even enabled the auto add thing on my brother in law's phone because he was notorious for forgetting to share photos of my kids (they spend a lot of time together). So now any time he takes their photos, google photos adds them to my shared album and I have 'Auto save' enabled on my side so those photos get copied into my account automatically. Also recently Google photos has really done a good job of adding editing features. Ah I really hope Google keeps it going.
    • cobertos 3y ago
      It has been a while since I switched from Google Photos, but I've found EZ Gallery to be a good gallery replacement. For backups, sync your camera roll to a computer/different service. Dropbox can do this, but there are third party apps like Autosync that can sync to a variety of services and protocols. Better than locking it all up in Google anyway.
    • Daegalus 3y ago
• cobertos 3y ago
  What does this mean for Google's registry business? It's new gTLDs, some of which still haven't even launched
  • jonhohle 3y ago
    At least when it started Google was a reseller for Go Daddy. Did that ever change?
    • cobertos 3y ago
      I hadn't heard about that. It always seemed like an all-Google affair for the registry services. They filed a lot of gTLD applications under the name "Charleston Road Registry" https://icannwiki.org/Charleston_Road_Registry_Inc https://icannwiki.org/Charleston_Road_Registry_Inc.
      • jonhohle 3y ago
        That might be true of their registries. Early Google domains was a private label API customer of Go Daddy, though. Go Daddy had been sunsetting API resellers and then Google came in and that plan was scrapped. This was ≈2007-2008.
  • judge2020 3y ago
    Registering new gTLDs was never exclusive to domains.google.com (and I think such is disallowed by ICANN), so it sounds like registry is untouched.
    • cobertos 3y ago
      True, but they had better pricing on all their own registry domains. I'm wondering if I have to pay more now xD, or if SquareSpace will continue the price discount.
    • cobertos 3y ago
      (Also you are correct for most domains. If they don't have a Specfication 9 exemption in their registry contract (or Specification 13 in the newer registry agreements), they are general availability)
• nyc_pizzadev 3y ago
  So I have a Google Workspace attached to my domain. How will this work when the domain is managed by another company? When I move my domains off Squarespace, how will my Workspace work? I’m confused if they are saying my Workspace services will migrate to Squarespace too? > Squarespace will also provide billing and support services to Google Workspace customers I have to admit, I’m at a total loss, this makes zero sense.
  • jonhohle 3y ago
    Probably not much differently. You may have to set DNS servers to Google’s or add a CNAME or MX records, but it’s likely not overly complicated.
  • scrollaway 3y ago
    Google Workspace has a reseller program. They likely mean that. I believe they already do it; I know Wix does — you can register your domain and with it get a mailbox, drive etc and all of it is managed by google workspace but admin is via wix.
  • judge2020 3y ago
    When you move, keep your authoritative dns's @ MX pointed to *asmx.google.com or whatever your current MX setup is.
  • morpheuskafka 3y ago
    Squarespace already acted as a reseller/billing provider for Google Workspace, you could buy it through them if you were using Squarespace hosting. The support doc is saying that if you bought Google Workspace through the Google Domains frontend, paying with the same method you used to buy domains, Squarespace will take over the billing of it in the future. If you went directly to Google Workspace, signed up, and then linked your domain manually, with separate billing, then Google Workspace will continue to bill you directly.
  • opello 3y ago
    I've got a long-grandfathered "free" workspace for a domain that never had Google as the registrar. I don't think there's much concern here -- Squarespace will be (unless they delegate that out) your new registrar and will likely migrate WHOIS and set up the appropriate MX/TXT/... records to keep things working. Otherwise, Google has documentation for that: https://support.google.com/a/answer/48090?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/48090?hl=en
• ramoswriter 3y ago
  This is so disappointing
• emmelaich 3y ago
  Yet https://domains.google/ https://domains.google/ is has no mention of it and still invites people to move their domain to Google.... I suppose that's ok if the move to Squarespace goes smoothly.
  • paulgb 3y ago
    The comms around this has been weird —- I haven’t been able to find any mention of it from official Google channels. You’d think if they were planning to announce this they’d have a blog post and email to customers ready to go.
    • TX81Z 3y ago
      In these transactions the users are what’s on offer. The least they can do is tell you to whom they just sold you.
    • _xivi 3y ago
      https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670 https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670
      • paulgb 3y ago
        Thanks! I couldn’t find that. Notably, no mention of if the GCP Cloud Domains product is affected or the status of Google’s TLDs.
        • CydeWeys 3y ago
          Cloud Domains is being killed along with Google Domains, TLDs are OK for now.
          • paulgb 3y ago
            Thanks! Where did you find that info? I can't find it anywhere.
• kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  At least we now know that Google really can't commit to anything. What was even the point of restructuring into Alphabet if they're never going to do anything other than ads, search, videos, and email.
  • supriyo-biswas 3y ago
    Avoiding regulatory action? (though TBF it was ineffective at that too).
  • philistine 3y ago
    Ads are being dismantled by the EU, search by chatGPT, videos run on the same ads. I guess that leaves email.
    • xtracto 3y ago
      I just recently setup a zpaq + insync flow to backup my drive data, I'll setup zpaq +imap for mails. Just recently migrated my mail adress to my own domain (sight Google domains). I'm ready to degoogle.
    • Jacky4Chan 3y ago
      A terrible email experience that doesn't allow you create tabs such as school, bills, shipping orders with status, etc...
• brycelarkin 3y ago
  I purchase all my domains from AWS Route53 to prevent this kind of thing from happening. I wonder what the rationale for doing this is? I just assumed cloud providers offered domain registration as a loss leader keep you in their ecosystem. Can AWS offer support for “.dev” domains so I can transfer it there?
  • cobertos 3y ago
    .dev is a Google Registry domain, so they'll have to negotiate with Google to get it in their platform.
  • owlbynight 3y ago
    If AWS ever decides to suspend your root account, good luck with that. They never, ever, ever give it back. I had a root account I used for free tier stuff on my primary e-mail address that I never got back because I had $2 charges I didn't pay for 4 months because I didn't realize they were even trying to charge me.
• breck 3y ago
  Ugh, this makes me sad. Google Domains was hands down the simplest, most reliable, fastest domain service I ever used. I originally was on GoDaddy, then migrated everything to Namecheap, then migrated everything to Google Domains. I hope they don't change anything for as long as possible. I hate having to deal with DNS busy work. I have 97 domains with Google Domains. 20 of them are in active use. ~10 I manage for family and friends. ~10 are redirects. I'm embarrassed to say I have ~57 side project ideas (GitHub pages + Google Domains is a bad habit—looks like I would brainstorm about 1 per week). Maybe the fact that Google Domains made it so easy to buy and manage many domains was actually a bad thing for me, as I picked up too many. So maybe I should be less sad :).
  • owlninja 3y ago
    Ouch! I only have a handful of domains I've hung on to and I also went from GoDaddy to Namecheap, but I've been contemplating moving them to Google recently since I already use enough of their other services. Glad I waited?
• WaffleIronMaker 3y ago
  I just bought my domain from Google weeks ago. I genuinely considered killedbygoogle.com while making my purchase, and I was like, "Surely domains.google isn't going anywhere, right? I mean, they even have their own TLD!" Apparently, I was so wrong. We'll have to see if Squarespace goes for any exorbitant price hikes.
  • WillPostForFood 3y ago
    I don't think there is any reason they won't charge the same as they do their own customers, $20 a year, So a 66.6% increase on Google's price. Very annoying as moving registrars is a hassle.
  • paulgb 3y ago
    Not just one TLD, I think they have over 40! They must be in the top 3 by number of TLDs owned. You don’t need to be a registrar to own a TLD, but in their case it seemed pretty essential to their strategy.
  • themagician 3y ago
    There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, “Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.”
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• schemescape 3y ago
  It says they’ll only honor existing prices for 12 months after the transaction closes. Any recommendations on where/how to transfer to get a) similar price, b) mail forwarding, and c) self-service subdomains? (Maybe the last two are standard—I have no idea since I’ve always used Google Domains)
  • justinclift 3y ago
    EasyDNS (easydns.com) has been good for us. They're also not one of the places that easily rolls over to fake legal notices, which reduces one potential stress vector as well.
  • matthasfun 3y ago
    This is exactly what I am here looking for. I have 18 domains. 14 have mail forwarding, 2 have dedicated emails through Google workspaces and 2 are forwards to another domain. I’m not paying an extra 144$ a year for the domains PLUS whatever additional fees I’ll run into after this to follow this to Squarespace. I know email forwarding isn’t the standard because Hover charges you 5$ per year per domain just for email forwarding. So frustrating.
    • scrollaway 3y ago
      Cloudflare does email forwarding for free. Just swap your nameservers to cloudflare’s.
  • radus 3y ago
    I’ve used namecheap for many years and have started using porkbun recently. Both have given me no problems, have reasonable prices and have those features.
    • schemescape 3y ago
      Looks like Namecheap is $15/year. That’s a 25% increase over Google Domains, although not a huge amount in absolute terms. Porkbun advertises $10/year, which would be great, if true.
• humanistbot 3y ago
  At this point, you should assume any Google service is purely temporary. If you're relying on any Google product, start migrating now on your own timeline before they give up and make you migrate on their timeline.
  • ssnistfajen 3y ago
    Is Google headed down the same path as IBM where the business eventually atrophies into a few select products kept alive by contract inertia rather than market trends?
    • vineyardmike 3y ago
      Honestly? No. Google is headed to become an oil and gas company... one great product that generates so much wealth, yet they're completely unable to find new revenue streams. They'll slowly limp along in their space, for a long time, while the world points to them as an example of the past.
• mcmcmc 3y ago
  removed
  • schemescape 3y ago
    What are they misunderstanding?
• bandrami 3y ago
  Ah crap. Does anybody else support the .dev TLD?
  • morpheuskafka 3y ago
    Lots of them, including Porkbun: https://tld-list.com/tld/dev https://tld-list.com/tld/dev
  • cobertos 3y ago
    Name cheap, but the price was higher than Google Domains
  • vxNsr 3y ago
    tld-list.com for all your tld related needs.
• kneebonian 3y ago
  Anyone got any other registars they recommend google domains has been my go to. Anyone that got similar features and prices?
• tyingq 3y ago
  >The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023 Well, there's at least 2 weeks notice. Unlocking to prepare for a transfer...
• clhodapp 3y ago
  This bites because there was a little-documented little integration between Google Domains and Gmail to allow you to use a custom domain for a personal Gmail address.
  • omoikane 3y ago
    If your domain registrar supports forwarding emails, I think you can continue to receive emails through a custom domain. Sending email with your custom domain in the from/reply-to address is a different business, I recall it requires getting gmail to verify that you can receive via that custom address, and also set the mail server to smtp.gmail.com port 587.
• Saris 3y ago
  I never really even thought about using Google domains, from the first time I heard of it I assumed it would last a few years and they would shut it down.
• justinclift 3y ago
  Well, I guess this will lessen any future impact of potential "Google suspended my account and all our domains disappeared!" scenarios.
• dramm 3y ago
  Oh well, Cloudflare Registrar here I come. And when I next choose a CDN etc. service it won't be from Google.
• owlbynight 3y ago
  God damn it. Google Domains was my registrar of choice because I figured I wouldn't have to ever think about logistics and their lookup rules. Ah well. I guess I'll see what Squarespace does to the experience. I'd transfer them to Cloudflare, but have similar concerns.
• hboon 3y ago
  Namecheap
• rootw0rm 3y ago
  wonder if my fake italian ID will still be legit with them?
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• Pxtl 3y ago
  What? Crap, my router has built-in support for Google domains for dynamic IPs so that's why I'm on them -- wanted my kids to have a nice name for a local Minecraft server. I assume that's going away.
• chupchap 3y ago
  So frustrating. Is there any way to migrate all emails out of gmail reliably on to another email service?
• lukew3 3y ago
  Shame. I really like the google domains UI. Does anybody know of good alternatives with a similar UI?
• sunnybeetroot 3y ago
  I use email forwarding and won’t be switching to Porkbun because they do t offer wildcard email forwarding. Does anyone know any other provider that does offer it?
  • hackersword 3y ago
    This is something I would also like to find alternative to.
• andrewstuart 3y ago
  The next closest thing to cancellation. Why is the CEO still there at Google? One day Google will really need developers and the developers won’t be there.
  • adrr 3y ago
    Sundar is trying to be the next Steve Ballmer. Alienate the tech community by just focusing on cost cutting. I do wonder if he would have cut YouTube back when it was bleeding cash if we was the CEO back then.
• willio58 3y ago
  So disappointing. Google domains is such a clean interface for buying domains, I really thought it was one of the few Google products that would last. They’re really not afraid to burn their customers over there at Google
• flowerlad 3y ago
  Would it make sense to renew now for multiple years before squarespace takes over?
• thatsadude 3y ago
  Well, don’t kill Firebase next please.
• nunez 3y ago
  Classic fucking mistake trusting Google with my domains. Back to gandi I go, I guess.
• yosefjaved1 3y ago
  You've got to be kidding me. I just transitioned to Google Domains. I'm really curious why Google decided to do this. Does anyone have insight?
• blindseer 3y ago
  A little over a year ago, they came out of beta: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30688552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30688552 There are so many comments in that thread advising not to use Google Domains (including my comment).
• Sophira 3y ago
  So wait, does this include Charleston Road Registry?
• aranw 3y ago
  Does anyone know why they wouldn't just merge this into the GCP offering? It makes perfect sense for domains.google to be a GCP product
• aranw 3y ago
  I absolutely hate AWS with a passion but I might actually have to transfer my domains to them now
• nilleo 3y ago
  Well at least now if Google ever locks my account I won't lose access to all my email aliases.
• mshroyer 3y ago
  I've been paying a tiny amount to use Google Cloud because the handful of domains I control were registered with Google Domains, in turn because I trusted Google to run a good registrar. Maybe there was no special reason to use Google Cloud DNS, or the other Google Cloud services I use, with Google Domains. It's been so long since I set this all up that I honestly can't remember. But I wouldn't be revisiting any of that but for this announcement that Google Domains is turning down. Now, in the process of finding a new registrar, I'm revisiting all of it. I'm a tiny customer, less than a rounding error for Google. But this still seems like a strategic error to me. How much can it cost to run a domain registrar? How does this weigh against the goodwill and trust gained from maintaining an important service you've implicitly promised that you would maintain?
• _xivi 3y ago
  Does Google have no strategy, like at all? Just last year, it was announced that "Google Domains is out of beta"
  • chippiewill 3y ago
    Google announce things are out of Beta when they're looking to attract business customers. Apparently it didn't work. Or they were juicing up their customer base for the sale.
    • arrow7000 3y ago
      "Oh no we had our service out of beta for 3 weeks and it didn't become a multi billion dollar business, guess we better shut it down immediately"
• rldjbpin 3y ago
  very interesting to sell it off when you still got a cloud division. at least with the recent AIaaS paradigm, they are not going to wind that down. now is a good time as any for cloudflare to "amazon lightsail" their domain offerings. but personally, i am still on the lookout for a good EU registrar with fair pricing and no risk of future acquisition.
• joshspankit 3y ago
  Of all the services I expected them to keep, Google Domains was in the top 3. Now I genuinely think they could sell search soon.
• 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 3y ago
  I was such a fool to believe that Google wouldn't drop this one too.
• sharts 3y ago
  Considering that Google can't even do search right anymore. It's probably a good idea for them to offload things.
  • wildrhythms 3y ago
    Bold to assume any savings from this will go into 'improving' search.
• dmnthrowaway 3y ago
  Hopefully a good place to ask: My family name .com is still available. That should be very rare in 2023. The name has only 4 letters. It is also a word that is hard to pronounce in the english speaking world and I hope to get a reasonable price with that argument. Chances for a company with that name are slim and I also have no company or business in that name (normal employed software dev that I am) The squatter in question has a form up asking for contact details and initial offer. How would I go about doing that and what should I expect price wise?
  • minitech 3y ago
    Pick a different TLD and don’t fund squatters.
    • dmnthrowaway 3y ago
      Valid response but I feel like that is 20 years too late. The squatting has already happened, there is no prevention now
  • zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    Try getting someone that doesn't have that name to buy it for you so it's not obvious why you want it. It's hard to say on the price, but I would guess $500 absolute minimum.
• wdb 3y ago
  Never sure why you would to manage your domains at the same place as you have your hosting done. I prefer to separate those out myself.
• quenix 3y ago
  How will this affect websites which are using the static Firebase hosting bundled into the google domains deal? As part of the Google Domains deal, I get free static hosting on Firebase…
• spullara 3y ago
  They still offer domain registration but within Google Cloud rather than a consumer facing product: https://cloud.google.com/dns https://cloud.google.com/dns (Cloud Domains) Ostensibly to compete with AWS Route 53.
• solfox 3y ago
  I recently moved my 100 domain portfolio to dynadot away from Google Domains - light years ahead of GD in terms of features and price.
• sarimkhalid 3y ago
  https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
• berniedurfee 3y ago
  I recently moved my domains over to Google because it was the least sketchy option out of all the sketchy domain hosts. I also figured hosting domains had to be pretty much zero effort and thus passive profit. Can’t wait for all the Squarespace spam to hit!
• DtNZNkLN 3y ago
  I don't think that domain registration would generate enough revenue for Google to care about it as a core business unit, especially because part of Google Domains' pitch was that they had all these obscure domains that were cheaper. My inference is that Google cared about domains because they were complementary to another, core business unit. The obvious one to me is Google Workspace: You come to Google, get your domain, set up your business email, and you're well on your way to having an online business presence. The big missing piece is a website.
• choas 3y ago
  Don't build your business on Google - at the end of the day it's just another reminder.
• emddudley 3y ago
  I like to use https://tld-list.com/ https://tld-list.com/ for registrar shopping. It has a lot of data on costs and features for many registrars.
• johnwheeler 3y ago
  I never thought google would be the next yahoo. Goes to show you how things can change in the world.
• csiegert 3y ago
  What’s a cheap and reliable registrar? GoDaddy bought my registrar and renewal prices are about to double for me.
  • mgrandl 3y ago
    Porkbun! porkbun.com
• inoffensivename 3y ago
  How many engineers should it take to maintain domains.google in a steady state, maybe fixing bugs and patching security vulnerabilities that come up, doing an occasional release?
• disqard 3y ago
  It looks like it was in beta for 7+ years, and GA for 14 months...?
• barbariangrunge 3y ago
  I have 6 domains with google, thinking, why would they ever shutter this? It seems so low effort, and it's been up for 7ish years Who do you use as a registrar? Why do you like them? Do you recommend them?
• nuclearsugar 3y ago
  I use Google Domains frequently because they support domain forwarding for both HTTP and HTTPS requests. This is critical for end users that type or click an HTTP address. Can anyone suggest a domain registrar that supports forwarding over SSL?
• jbjbjbjb 3y ago
  Did any customers receive an email about this from Google? I have not.
• tristanb 3y ago
  This is incredibly annoying. I migrated all my domains from Badger to Google Domains. I'm really losing any remaining faith I have in Google, they kill any products that are remotely usable.