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Tell HN: I think there are major issues with Google –> Squarespace domains

120 points by jc_811 2y ago

As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, Google domains was sold to SquareSpace domains and the migration has been under way for a few months. I build sites for clients and have noticed that domains that were transferred to SquareSpace are having serious issues with DNS settings updating/propagating. Multiple times this week (and for completely different accounts) I’ve updated DNS records in SquareSpace domains dashboard only for nothing to update nor propagate around the web. These domains all use SquareSpace’s nameservers. Reaching out to support is a nightmare because their agents are simply trained to say “you need to wait 72 hours” (which, I get is technically the limit but every other registrar I’ve worked with propagates settings within minutes or hours), and after 72 hours has passed with no update, they’ve simply stopped replying to me. Which, I’m assuming they’re tracking down some system wide issues. Also they do not let you edit the TTL of records All this to say, if you had domains on Google and simply let the migration go ahead - I’d recommend moving your domains off SquareSpace asap.

mythz 2y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway598 2y ago
  Do Cloudflare still restrict you to only their nameservers?
  - neocritter 2y ago
    Changing it is part of one of their paid things for some reason.
  - rob 2y ago
    > 6.1 Nameservers. Registrant agrees to use Cloudflare’s nameservers. REGISTRANT ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT IT MAY NOT CHANGE THE NAMESERVERS ON THE REGISTRAR SERVICES, AND THAT IT MUST TRANSFER TO A THIRD PARTY REGISTRAR IF IT WISHES TO CHANGE NAMESERVERS. https://www.cloudflare.com/domain-registration-agreement/ https://www.cloudflare.com/domain-registration-agreement/
  - mythz 2y ago
    Yeah looks like it, says you'd need to upgrade to their Business plan to specify Custom Nameservers. But haven't needed to as it still lets me have non-proxied DNS A/CNAME/MX entries to elsewhere.
  - tfsh 2y ago
    Not allowing custom nameservers is the one thing stopping me from switching to Cloudflare. Bit of a shame, as I had a bunch of domains with Google, which I suppose are now owned by Squarespace, which is a company I never saw myself using...
    - chrisdsaldivar 2y ago
      Can I ask when/why you would use custom name servers? I’m unfamiliar with them.
      - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        Letting an email provider manage the domain.
      - tfsh 2y ago
        My reason is so that I can manage the DNS from a different place. I use Digital Ocean to manage all my servers, and they have a DNS management interface where you can add domains, I prefer their UI and it has some nice integrations with their other services (e.g auto complete for VPS IPs).
- parkerhiggins 2y ago
  Seconded, while so tedious, we're in the process of moving hundreds (400+) domains from Google Domains (now Squarespace) to Cloudflare Registrar. We're seeing similar oddities with redirects for domain protection.
aimazon 2y ago
There’s a middle ground: don’t use your registrar as your DNS provider. You can use Google Cloud’s DNS while using Squarespace as the registrar, avoiding any problems with Squarespace’s DNS service being subpar.
- smitty1e 2y ago
  Haha, I thought your handle was "amazon", and I'm wondering: why aren't you pimping Route53?
  - skeeter2020 2y ago
    funny - for many TLDs isn't this exactly what you get if you register a domain with Amazon? I know they are the ICANN registrar for some, but many you use say, Gandi and get an auto Route53 zone setup.
- toddmorey 2y ago
  Interestingly, that's how squaresapce left my DNS (pointing to google NS) after the migration.
- numbsafari 2y ago
  This is how I’ve almost always done things. I don’t like making changes with my registrar very often and I don’t like having everyone need access. So keeping their services limited reduces the security scope.
- Ir0nMan 2y ago
  This. Separate the tasks. Always use one provider as your domain registrar (ex: NameSilo) and another provider for your DNS (ex: Cloudflare).
toddmorey 2y ago
Does anyone have suggestions for a good registrar for domains? I'm not interested in the squarespace hosting products and I don't think they are great at being a registrar / dns provider.
- xd1936 2y ago
  I've enjoyed switching everything I can to Cloudflare Domains. They sell at-cost.
  - neitsab 2y ago
    A never mentioned but crucial issue with Cloudflare is that you are required to use their nameservers; you cannot change to use third party NS without transferring out. Sources: - https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/transfer-domain-to-cloudflare/#requirements https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/tran...: > All domains using Cloudflare Registrar must use Cloudflare DNS on a full setup. This also means that you cannot change to another DNS provider while using Cloudflare Registrar. - https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-transferring-domains-to-cloudflare/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-transfer...: > We built our registrar specifically for customers who want to use other Cloudflare products. This means domains registered with Cloudflare can only use our nameservers. If your domain requires non-Cloudflare nameservers then we’re not the right registrar for you. - https://community.cloudflare.com/t/can-i-register-a-domain-and-still-use-3rd-party-nameservers/361155 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/can-i-register-a-domain-a...
- cloudripper 2y ago
  Porkbun is a clean option.
- Belphemur 2y ago
  Happy with Cloudflare and Porkbun for domains that CF doesn't support. Both have great API and fair pricing.
- Calamitous 2y ago
  I’ve had a lot of success with namecheap. Granted, I haven’t tried many others, but it’s worked well for me.
Neil44 2y ago
You can set up a free Cloudflare plan and use their nameservers. Or if you have a Linode account you can add the domain there and use theirs.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  it pains me to object because Cloudflare truly has some great products and services, but if there's something worse than google controlling the internet, it's Cloudflare.
  - parkerhiggins 2y ago
    :old-man-yells-at-cloudflare: https://slackmojis.com/emojis/59795-old-man-yells-at-cloudflare https://slackmojis.com/emojis/59795-old-man-yells-at-cloudfl...
  - redserk 2y ago
    Cloudflare isn’t forcing people to use their services and can be swapped out for other providers. DDoSes and various internet attacks suck to deal with. I blame the people thinking attacking other people’s infrastructure is funny.
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      Yeah, the Internet is extremely adversarial, like almost comically so. Cloudflare's CDN/bot-mitigation stuff is very much a symptom of a far larger problem.
- toddmorey 2y ago
  Not only their nameservers, but I just found out that Cloudflare is also a registrar with a policy I like "at-cost pricing for registration and renewal." I'm not sure how their tools are yet but my hope would be pretty good as I doubt there's a DNS configuration out there that CF hasn't seen yet.
  - kevincox 2y ago
leonardaustin 2y ago
I’ve always used Cloudflare for DNS and Google Domains for registration, which worked great for me. When I heard about Google selling domains to square Space I migrated all my domains to Cloudflare Domain Registrar. Now I’m running with a single point of success.
jspann 2y ago
I'm on Google Domains right now, was disappointed when I heard the change to SS, and have been putting off moving to someone else before the transfer but want to now. What are other registrars other there that I should move my domains to? I've heard good things about porkbun.
- CSSer 2y ago
  Personally, I like Namecheap. They offer really robust DNS configuration, extraordinarily low TTLs, and they have a dashboard that isn’t complete trash. I’ve learned over time that outside of exorbitant exceptions, the prices are irrelevant. Essentially, I don’t chase domain promotions. I’ve also never observed them participating in typical registrar skeez. Their email reminders/notifications and MFA are also nice.
- andyjohnson0 2y ago
  I've been very happy with Cloudflare
WesSouza 2y ago
I moved all my domains to Cloudflare, but one .dev is still stuck with Google for being a premium domain. No word on migrating it to Squarespace for me for some reason.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Are the rules different for moving premium domains? I have a couple.
- mattrighetti 2y ago
  Isn’t .app only available on Google too?
  - TheSaifurRahman 2y ago
    Google is the registry for .app, they own the .app zone. Other registrars also sell .app via Google and most of them should have an option to transfer .app, .dev, etc. They only shutdown their registrar business.
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  That really screwed me over. AWS can’t register.dev, so we had to vet and approve a different vendor just for that domain. Super annoying.
mococa 2y ago
My biggest mistake was trusting Google. When I heard the news, I migrated all my domains to Cloudflare/Namecheap.
- thegrim33 2y ago
  For anyone that wasn't around, a few years back Namecheap decided without any warning to just instantly drop all their customers from an entire country because of political ideology. I wouldn't trust them at all since they've shown they're more interested in making political statements than running a business. You might be the one they randomly drop next, sending you scrambling.
  - sealeck 2y ago
    Some missing essential context: pretty sure this was Russian users in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
    - thegrim33 2y ago
      I don't consider the country name essential context. The point is that if any country does something the company doesn't like, they've shown they'll just drop the country. Whether you agree with what the country did or not.
      - mr_toad 2y ago
        Frankly I wish more companies had the balls to do that.
      - nocoiner 2y ago
        Seems like the point here is that that country did something that was pretty, pretty bad (in their opinion, anyway) and decided to abide by their principles rather than maximize profit. I assume there are other capitalists out there who made the other decision. I’m OK with that. I know which of those I’d prefer to work with. Sounds like you do, too.
      - 2y ago
johnklos 2y ago
Consider moving to Porkbun, where they have actual humans who know what DNS is and how it works. I moved a test domain to them. I was impressed that they not only moved the domain while keeping the correct nameservers, but they also imported existing DNS glue, too, meaning there wasn't the tiniest bit of downtime.
- rafram 2y ago
  Porkbun is great. Never had an issue with them. Often one of the cheapest options, too.
- abound 2y ago
  I also went to Porkbun (and recommend it, they're great), though in migrating ~30 domains, I must have found 10 different ways to accidentally cause outages: - Not turning off DNSSEC before migrating - Moving the domain with no prep work (Google Domains nameservers stop resolving as soon as the migration is complete) - Starting the migration without updating nameservers (starting a transfer locks them on Google Domains) These are all of course 100% my fault (and I should have read the "External Domains" docs better), but it was surprisingly tricky to get right.
- sohamgovande 2y ago
  +1 for PorkBun. Been using them for 4 years. Cheap prices, great support, fully reliable. What more can I ask for.
- temp0826 2y ago
  I really want to move my domains (off of Gandi since the ownership change) to porkbun. Unfortunately they don't support a tld of one of my domains (.st) and I really don't want to have my domains managed at multiple places.
  - threecheese 2y ago
    Must be their business model! Same issue here (diff tld).
- _akhe 2y ago
PUSH_AX 2y ago
You can use other name servers, point it to your favourite provider. Done.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
I have two domains with GD. One was transfered a few weeks ago and the other is still just hanging out there with no way to know what's going on. I'm not confident it's going to remain mine.
woodruffw 2y ago
I've also run into issues: I have 4 domains, only one of which has been migrated so far. The rest are seemingly in limbo. Separately, I was surprised (meaning concerned) to see that they had also "conveniently" copied my credit card information over to my (automatically?) created Squarespace account. I was under the impression that sharing credit card numbers like that was a classic "must not" for account migrations between third-party vendors.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  > [...] sharing credit card numbers like that was a classic "must not" [...] That's indeed a complete no-go. If they did that, they'd have to keep your CVC on file too, and that would end with them losing their certificate to process credit cards entirely. So that probably didn't happen. Another way it could've gone down is if the payment provider is unchanged. I.e. Google processed payments through global collect and handed your subscription IDs to square space. Now there is no need to pass credit card information as the collecting party hasn't changed. Only the person triggering the collection. That's just an example however, I don't work for Google nor am i involved in this migration.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    Thanks, that's a plausible explanation. I would be mildly surprised if Google was using a third-party payment provider for Google Domains, but I don't think I have any way to verify or refute this :-) (I suppose Google could remain the payment processor while handing the operations themselves off to Squarespace, as well.)
    - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
      You can transfer saved cards between gateways without storing CVVs (or card numbers) yourself - they don't like to do it but if you are a big enough fish they still will.
ed_db 2y ago
I also had one migrated and the left on GD, safe to say the transfer from GD to Cloudflare for all of the non migrated domains was very quick. The one on Squarespace is taking days to move. It took several hours to get the transfer authorisation code and now I've been waiting days for the actual transfer to happen. I was very happy with Google Domains, however I'm not surprised in the least that they killed off the product as they seem to do for everything.
_akhe 2y ago
I can't believe how many people are suggesting Cloudflare who: 1) Is backed by the U.S. Dept of Defense, NIST, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the EU (Horizon 2020 Program). 2) The main way people know about Cloudflare is that awful Verifying you are human message and 3-second redirect you see on some sites - which is my prompt to immediately leave the site. Why would anyone want anything to do with slow as hell and government-backed Cloudflare?
- TheSaifurRahman 2y ago
  Could you share some events/resources to back your claims about CF being backed by the government? I’d love to move out of CF.
  - _akhe 2y ago
    This is why I love LLMs. Try using a search engine to find the answer to "how is Cloudflare backed by governments"? On DuckDuckGo, the entire first page were Cloudflare results! Come on... don't they know what I'm asking? Let's just get to the answer: ollama run llama3 > how is Cloudflare backed by governments? Cloudflare has partnerships with various government agencies around the world to help improve internet security, stability, and overall performance. Here are some examples: 1. *US Department of Defense (DoD): Cloudflare is a certified provider for the DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). 2. *UK Government*: Cloudflare is a partner with the UK Government's Cabinet Office, supporting their efforts to improve internet security and stability in the UK. 3. *European Union's (EU) Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA)*: Cloudflare collaborates with ENISA, the EU's cybersecurity agency, to help prevent and respond to cyber threats across Europe. 4. *Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)*: Cloudflare is a partner with ASD, Australia's premier cybersecurity agency, supporting their efforts to improve internet security and stability in Australia. 5. *Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE)*: Cloudflare collaborates with CSE, Canada's national cyber security authority, to help protect Canadian interests online. These partnerships often involve: 1. *Security research*: Cloudflare works with government agencies to identify and mitigate emerging threats, such as DDoS attacks, malware, and other types of cyber attacks. 2. *Cybersecurity training*: Cloudflare provides training and education to government officials, security personnel, and industry professionals on best practices for cybersecurity and cloud-based services. 3. *Technology development*: Cloudflare collaborates with governments on developing new technologies and solutions to address specific cybersecurity challenges, such as combating online terrorism or protecting critical infrastructure. 4. *Incident response*: In the event of a significant cyber incident, Cloudflare works closely with government agencies to respond quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact on affected organizations. These partnerships demonstrate the trust and confidence governments have in Cloudflare's ability to help protect their interests online. By working together, they can create safer, more secure, and more resilient internet ecosystems for everyone. > how does Cloudflare partner with DoD? Answer in a single paragraph Cloudflare partners with the US Department of Defense (DoD) through various initiatives, including Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), joint cybersecurity initiatives, research and development projects, training and education programs, incident response and recovery efforts, and market research and analysis. Specifically, Cloudflare collaborates with the DoD on threat hunting and cloud security solutions, develops AI-powered tools for detecting and responding to cyber threats, provides secure cloud storage and compute services tailored to the DoD's needs, offers training and education to DoD personnel on best practices for cybersecurity, cloud-based services, and threat hunting techniques, responds quickly and effectively in the event of significant cyber incidents, and analyzes emerging cybersecurity trends and threats to inform the DoD's security strategies and investments. > how much does dod pay cloudflare I couldn't find exact figures on how much the US Department of Defense (DoD) pays Cloudflare, as this information is likely classified or not publicly disclosed. However, I can provide some context: 1. *Cloudflare's revenue*: In 2020, Cloudflare reported $185 million in revenue, which was a 52% increase from 2019. 2. *Defense spending*: The DoD has a significant budget for cybersecurity and cloud services. For example, the DoD's 2022 budget request included $15.4 billion for "Cybersecurity" and $3.8 billion for "Cloud Computing Services". 3. *Cloudflare's defense contracts*: Cloudflare has secured several defense-related contracts with the DoD, including a $40 million contract in 2019 to provide cloud security services to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Another example is a $20 million contract in 2020 to develop an AI-powered threat detection system for the US Air Force. I could go on... What might be scarier is I learned this information from reading regular news articles maybe 5-6 years ago, so I've known for a long time that Cloudflare was vaguely involved with, or at least sold services to the U.S. federal government and military. But in 2024 it's very hard to find anything detailed through Google or DuckDuckGo, or even Wikipedia. You can find it on Cloudflare's website when they want to use it for marketing: “Cloudflare has long served the most technical, security-aware agencies like the FBI and U.S Department of State,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare. Source: https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2022/Cloudflare-Earns-FedRAMP-Moderate-Authorization-to-Further-Help-Government-Agencies-Modernize-and-Secure-U.S.-Infrastructure/default.aspx https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2022/Cloudflare-Ear... But I like that the LLM is able to really grab the information in a way search engines are getting worse at (through censorship and other algorithmic pressures).
frompdx 2y ago
> Also they do not let you edit the TTL of records That's going to make migrating name-servers painful. What a nightmare. Edit: Just confirmed on my domains that moved. You cannot update the TTL of any record. Can anyone suggest a strategy for safely migrating DNS providers without changing the current TTL settings since they can't be updated?
- toast0 2y ago
  What do you mean by safely? Step 1) configure your zone(s) on the new server(s) Step 2) update your configured dns servers at the domain registry (usually through an interface at your registrar) Step 3) wait for as long as you feel is appropriate Step 4) remove the zones from your old server(s) Most tlds serve glue records with a ttl of 1-2 days. I'd wait at least that long after the tld servers update before dropping the zone on the old server. But you may want to wait much longer, because some DNS servers cache some records for an unreasonable amount of time. If you can change the NS records on the old servers to point at your new ones, that might help, but it might not. I don't know how much effort you want to put into keeping things working on servers that act unreasonable.
  - frompdx 2y ago
    Thanks for the reply. That's roughly the strategy I'm thinking. In the past I would have also reduced the domain TTLs well in advance. You are probably correct about those using unreasonable TTLs on their nameservers.
benlivengood 2y ago
I guess I made the right choice moving to route53 a couple months ago. I can't for the life of me imagine who thought it was a good idea to drop registrar services from GCP. CloudDNS is still functioning and so I left zones there as the authoritative name servers but I'm starting to question why I leave anything in GCP.
- captn3m0 2y ago
  R53 is great but doesn’t support a lot of the newer TLDs.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jc_811 2y ago
Following up, over 2 days have passed since opening my ticket with SquareSpace support (after waiting 72 hours for DNS), and I have not received a single reply. I've edited DNS records for multiple domains that have not propagated at all. As far as I can tell, it looks like there are major system-wide issues with SquareSpace domain's DNS records propagation. Doesn't seem like it works at all. Can ANYONE in this thread confirm they've have DNS records propagate correctly after a domain was transferred from Google -> SquareSpace?
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  I'm trying for the first time and running into the same problems as you. They do update in the squarespace UI but don't actually get updated in any DNS. It believes the google name servers are its correct defaults - I was thinking about trying to switch to whatever non-google name servers squarespace uses and see if it is smart enough to update those.
youniverse 2y ago
I also use Porkbun, they are great. Anyone tried Cloudflare before? I was thinking of trying them next it seems they sell domains at wholesale prices as it's not how they make money. Along with that vercel billing debacle that recently happened people were recommending cloudflare as an alternative for hosting as well so things could be streamlined a bit.
- _akhe 2y ago
  Porkbun uses Cloudflare, but you knew that right? This entire thread is a Cloudlfare shill post. PS: Cloudflare vs Vercel. Cloudflare is a military/government contractor that offers outdated and slow cloud products that others have already offered for years. Vercel is a serverless platform who somewhat innovated in that space, designed ideally for Next.js and/or React apps for convenient CI/CD from a github repo. Not the same.
verita_diria 2y ago
A couple dozen of my domains have been migrated from Google Domains to Squarespace. The experience has been seamless so far. All the settings have been retained and the UI is very good compared to other registrar UIs out there that look dated. Your description is confusing to me. A domain migrated from Google Domains to Squarespace retains its zone in Google's Cloud DNS service. In other words, there is no DNS zone migration. The name server entries on all of my migrated domains are *.googledomains.com. If you're saying that Squarespace is having DNS propagation issues for your migrated domains, then Google Cloud is having propagation issues on the Cloud DNS service. We would have likely heard about that in a separate HN thread. But it's not happening. My migrated domains are propagating edited entries just fine. Did you find the actual issue on your domain?
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  I think the issue is the connection between the squarespace management UI and the google DNS service - they probably are not successfully sending your changes over to google which is why nothing is updating. I'm having the exact same problem as OP.

120 points by jc_811 2y ago

mythz 2y ago

[flagged]

throwaway598 2y ago
Do Cloudflare still restrict you to only their nameservers?
- neocritter 2y ago
  Changing it is part of one of their paid things for some reason.
- rob 2y ago
  > 6.1 Nameservers. Registrant agrees to use Cloudflare’s nameservers. REGISTRANT ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT IT MAY NOT CHANGE THE NAMESERVERS ON THE REGISTRAR SERVICES, AND THAT IT MUST TRANSFER TO A THIRD PARTY REGISTRAR IF IT WISHES TO CHANGE NAMESERVERS. https://www.cloudflare.com/domain-registration-agreement/ https://www.cloudflare.com/domain-registration-agreement/
- mythz 2y ago
  Yeah looks like it, says you'd need to upgrade to their Business plan to specify Custom Nameservers. But haven't needed to as it still lets me have non-proxied DNS A/CNAME/MX entries to elsewhere.
- tfsh 2y ago
  Not allowing custom nameservers is the one thing stopping me from switching to Cloudflare. Bit of a shame, as I had a bunch of domains with Google, which I suppose are now owned by Squarespace, which is a company I never saw myself using...
  - chrisdsaldivar 2y ago
    Can I ask when/why you would use custom name servers? I’m unfamiliar with them.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
      Letting an email provider manage the domain.
    - tfsh 2y ago
      My reason is so that I can manage the DNS from a different place. I use Digital Ocean to manage all my servers, and they have a DNS management interface where you can add domains, I prefer their UI and it has some nice integrations with their other services (e.g auto complete for VPS IPs).
parkerhiggins 2y ago
Seconded, while so tedious, we're in the process of moving hundreds (400+) domains from Google Domains (now Squarespace) to Cloudflare Registrar. We're seeing similar oddities with redirects for domain protection.

aimazon 2y ago

There’s a middle ground: don’t use your registrar as your DNS provider. You can use Google Cloud’s DNS while using Squarespace as the registrar, avoiding any problems with Squarespace’s DNS service being subpar.

smitty1e 2y ago
Haha, I thought your handle was "amazon", and I'm wondering: why aren't you pimping Route53?
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  funny - for many TLDs isn't this exactly what you get if you register a domain with Amazon? I know they are the ICANN registrar for some, but many you use say, Gandi and get an auto Route53 zone setup.
toddmorey 2y ago
Interestingly, that's how squaresapce left my DNS (pointing to google NS) after the migration.
numbsafari 2y ago
This is how I’ve almost always done things. I don’t like making changes with my registrar very often and I don’t like having everyone need access. So keeping their services limited reduces the security scope.
Ir0nMan 2y ago
This. Separate the tasks. Always use one provider as your domain registrar (ex: NameSilo) and another provider for your DNS (ex: Cloudflare).

toddmorey 2y ago

Does anyone have suggestions for a good registrar for domains? I'm not interested in the squarespace hosting products and I don't think they are great at being a registrar / dns provider.

xd1936 2y ago
I've enjoyed switching everything I can to Cloudflare Domains. They sell at-cost.
- neitsab 2y ago
  A never mentioned but crucial issue with Cloudflare is that you are required to use their nameservers; you cannot change to use third party NS without transferring out. Sources: - https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/transfer-domain-to-cloudflare/#requirements https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/tran...: > All domains using Cloudflare Registrar must use Cloudflare DNS on a full setup. This also means that you cannot change to another DNS provider while using Cloudflare Registrar. - https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-transferring-domains-to-cloudflare/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-step-by-step-guide-to-transfer...: > We built our registrar specifically for customers who want to use other Cloudflare products. This means domains registered with Cloudflare can only use our nameservers. If your domain requires non-Cloudflare nameservers then we’re not the right registrar for you. - https://community.cloudflare.com/t/can-i-register-a-domain-and-still-use-3rd-party-nameservers/361155 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/can-i-register-a-domain-a...
cloudripper 2y ago
Porkbun is a clean option.
Belphemur 2y ago
Happy with Cloudflare and Porkbun for domains that CF doesn't support. Both have great API and fair pricing.
Calamitous 2y ago
I’ve had a lot of success with namecheap. Granted, I haven’t tried many others, but it’s worked well for me.

Neil44 2y ago

You can set up a free Cloudflare plan and use their nameservers. Or if you have a Linode account you can add the domain there and use theirs.

skeeter2020 2y ago
it pains me to object because Cloudflare truly has some great products and services, but if there's something worse than google controlling the internet, it's Cloudflare.
- parkerhiggins 2y ago
  :old-man-yells-at-cloudflare: https://slackmojis.com/emojis/59795-old-man-yells-at-cloudflare https://slackmojis.com/emojis/59795-old-man-yells-at-cloudfl...
- redserk 2y ago
  Cloudflare isn’t forcing people to use their services and can be swapped out for other providers. DDoSes and various internet attacks suck to deal with. I blame the people thinking attacking other people’s infrastructure is funny.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    Yeah, the Internet is extremely adversarial, like almost comically so. Cloudflare's CDN/bot-mitigation stuff is very much a symptom of a far larger problem.
toddmorey 2y ago
Not only their nameservers, but I just found out that Cloudflare is also a registrar with a policy I like "at-cost pricing for registration and renewal." I'm not sure how their tools are yet but my hope would be pretty good as I doubt there's a DNS configuration out there that CF hasn't seen yet.
- kevincox 2y ago

leonardaustin 2y ago

I’ve always used Cloudflare for DNS and Google Domains for registration, which worked great for me. When I heard about Google selling domains to square Space I migrated all my domains to Cloudflare Domain Registrar. Now I’m running with a single point of success.

jspann 2y ago

I'm on Google Domains right now, was disappointed when I heard the change to SS, and have been putting off moving to someone else before the transfer but want to now. What are other registrars other there that I should move my domains to? I've heard good things about porkbun.

CSSer 2y ago
Personally, I like Namecheap. They offer really robust DNS configuration, extraordinarily low TTLs, and they have a dashboard that isn’t complete trash. I’ve learned over time that outside of exorbitant exceptions, the prices are irrelevant. Essentially, I don’t chase domain promotions. I’ve also never observed them participating in typical registrar skeez. Their email reminders/notifications and MFA are also nice.
andyjohnson0 2y ago
I've been very happy with Cloudflare

WesSouza 2y ago

I moved all my domains to Cloudflare, but one .dev is still stuck with Google for being a premium domain. No word on migrating it to Squarespace for me for some reason.

breadwinner 2y ago
Are the rules different for moving premium domains? I have a couple.
mattrighetti 2y ago
Isn’t .app only available on Google too?
- TheSaifurRahman 2y ago
  Google is the registry for .app, they own the .app zone. Other registrars also sell .app via Google and most of them should have an option to transfer .app, .dev, etc. They only shutdown their registrar business.
SkyPuncher 2y ago
That really screwed me over. AWS can’t register.dev, so we had to vet and approve a different vendor just for that domain. Super annoying.

mococa 2y ago

My biggest mistake was trusting Google. When I heard the news, I migrated all my domains to Cloudflare/Namecheap.

thegrim33 2y ago
For anyone that wasn't around, a few years back Namecheap decided without any warning to just instantly drop all their customers from an entire country because of political ideology. I wouldn't trust them at all since they've shown they're more interested in making political statements than running a business. You might be the one they randomly drop next, sending you scrambling.
- sealeck 2y ago
  Some missing essential context: pretty sure this was Russian users in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
  - thegrim33 2y ago
    I don't consider the country name essential context. The point is that if any country does something the company doesn't like, they've shown they'll just drop the country. Whether you agree with what the country did or not.
    - mr_toad 2y ago
      Frankly I wish more companies had the balls to do that.
    - nocoiner 2y ago
      Seems like the point here is that that country did something that was pretty, pretty bad (in their opinion, anyway) and decided to abide by their principles rather than maximize profit. I assume there are other capitalists out there who made the other decision. I’m OK with that. I know which of those I’d prefer to work with. Sounds like you do, too.
    - 2y ago

johnklos 2y ago

Consider moving to Porkbun, where they have actual humans who know what DNS is and how it works. I moved a test domain to them. I was impressed that they not only moved the domain while keeping the correct nameservers, but they also imported existing DNS glue, too, meaning there wasn't the tiniest bit of downtime.

rafram 2y ago
Porkbun is great. Never had an issue with them. Often one of the cheapest options, too.
abound 2y ago
I also went to Porkbun (and recommend it, they're great), though in migrating ~30 domains, I must have found 10 different ways to accidentally cause outages: - Not turning off DNSSEC before migrating - Moving the domain with no prep work (Google Domains nameservers stop resolving as soon as the migration is complete) - Starting the migration without updating nameservers (starting a transfer locks them on Google Domains) These are all of course 100% my fault (and I should have read the "External Domains" docs better), but it was surprisingly tricky to get right.
sohamgovande 2y ago
+1 for PorkBun. Been using them for 4 years. Cheap prices, great support, fully reliable. What more can I ask for.
temp0826 2y ago
I really want to move my domains (off of Gandi since the ownership change) to porkbun. Unfortunately they don't support a tld of one of my domains (.st) and I really don't want to have my domains managed at multiple places.
- threecheese 2y ago
  Must be their business model! Same issue here (diff tld).
_akhe 2y ago

PUSH_AX 2y ago

You can use other name servers, point it to your favourite provider. Done.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

I have two domains with GD. One was transfered a few weeks ago and the other is still just hanging out there with no way to know what's going on. I'm not confident it's going to remain mine.

woodruffw 2y ago

I've also run into issues: I have 4 domains, only one of which has been migrated so far. The rest are seemingly in limbo. Separately, I was surprised (meaning concerned) to see that they had also "conveniently" copied my credit card information over to my (automatically?) created Squarespace account. I was under the impression that sharing credit card numbers like that was a classic "must not" for account migrations between third-party vendors.

ffsm8 2y ago
> [...] sharing credit card numbers like that was a classic "must not" [...] That's indeed a complete no-go. If they did that, they'd have to keep your CVC on file too, and that would end with them losing their certificate to process credit cards entirely. So that probably didn't happen. Another way it could've gone down is if the payment provider is unchanged. I.e. Google processed payments through global collect and handed your subscription IDs to square space. Now there is no need to pass credit card information as the collecting party hasn't changed. Only the person triggering the collection. That's just an example however, I don't work for Google nor am i involved in this migration.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  Thanks, that's a plausible explanation. I would be mildly surprised if Google was using a third-party payment provider for Google Domains, but I don't think I have any way to verify or refute this :-) (I suppose Google could remain the payment processor while handing the operations themselves off to Squarespace, as well.)
  - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
    You can transfer saved cards between gateways without storing CVVs (or card numbers) yourself - they don't like to do it but if you are a big enough fish they still will.

ed_db 2y ago

I also had one migrated and the left on GD, safe to say the transfer from GD to Cloudflare for all of the non migrated domains was very quick. The one on Squarespace is taking days to move. It took several hours to get the transfer authorisation code and now I've been waiting days for the actual transfer to happen. I was very happy with Google Domains, however I'm not surprised in the least that they killed off the product as they seem to do for everything.

_akhe 2y ago

I can't believe how many people are suggesting Cloudflare who: 1) Is backed by the U.S. Dept of Defense, NIST, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the EU (Horizon 2020 Program). 2) The main way people know about Cloudflare is that awful Verifying you are human message and 3-second redirect you see on some sites - which is my prompt to immediately leave the site. Why would anyone want anything to do with slow as hell and government-backed Cloudflare?

TheSaifurRahman 2y ago
Could you share some events/resources to back your claims about CF being backed by the government? I’d love to move out of CF.
- _akhe 2y ago
  This is why I love LLMs. Try using a search engine to find the answer to "how is Cloudflare backed by governments"? On DuckDuckGo, the entire first page were Cloudflare results! Come on... don't they know what I'm asking? Let's just get to the answer: ollama run llama3 > how is Cloudflare backed by governments? Cloudflare has partnerships with various government agencies around the world to help improve internet security, stability, and overall performance. Here are some examples: 1. *US Department of Defense (DoD): Cloudflare is a certified provider for the DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). 2. *UK Government*: Cloudflare is a partner with the UK Government's Cabinet Office, supporting their efforts to improve internet security and stability in the UK. 3. *European Union's (EU) Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA)*: Cloudflare collaborates with ENISA, the EU's cybersecurity agency, to help prevent and respond to cyber threats across Europe. 4. *Australian Signals Directorate (ASD)*: Cloudflare is a partner with ASD, Australia's premier cybersecurity agency, supporting their efforts to improve internet security and stability in Australia. 5. *Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE)*: Cloudflare collaborates with CSE, Canada's national cyber security authority, to help protect Canadian interests online. These partnerships often involve: 1. *Security research*: Cloudflare works with government agencies to identify and mitigate emerging threats, such as DDoS attacks, malware, and other types of cyber attacks. 2. *Cybersecurity training*: Cloudflare provides training and education to government officials, security personnel, and industry professionals on best practices for cybersecurity and cloud-based services. 3. *Technology development*: Cloudflare collaborates with governments on developing new technologies and solutions to address specific cybersecurity challenges, such as combating online terrorism or protecting critical infrastructure. 4. *Incident response*: In the event of a significant cyber incident, Cloudflare works closely with government agencies to respond quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact on affected organizations. These partnerships demonstrate the trust and confidence governments have in Cloudflare's ability to help protect their interests online. By working together, they can create safer, more secure, and more resilient internet ecosystems for everyone. > how does Cloudflare partner with DoD? Answer in a single paragraph Cloudflare partners with the US Department of Defense (DoD) through various initiatives, including Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), joint cybersecurity initiatives, research and development projects, training and education programs, incident response and recovery efforts, and market research and analysis. Specifically, Cloudflare collaborates with the DoD on threat hunting and cloud security solutions, develops AI-powered tools for detecting and responding to cyber threats, provides secure cloud storage and compute services tailored to the DoD's needs, offers training and education to DoD personnel on best practices for cybersecurity, cloud-based services, and threat hunting techniques, responds quickly and effectively in the event of significant cyber incidents, and analyzes emerging cybersecurity trends and threats to inform the DoD's security strategies and investments. > how much does dod pay cloudflare I couldn't find exact figures on how much the US Department of Defense (DoD) pays Cloudflare, as this information is likely classified or not publicly disclosed. However, I can provide some context: 1. *Cloudflare's revenue*: In 2020, Cloudflare reported $185 million in revenue, which was a 52% increase from 2019. 2. *Defense spending*: The DoD has a significant budget for cybersecurity and cloud services. For example, the DoD's 2022 budget request included $15.4 billion for "Cybersecurity" and $3.8 billion for "Cloud Computing Services". 3. *Cloudflare's defense contracts*: Cloudflare has secured several defense-related contracts with the DoD, including a $40 million contract in 2019 to provide cloud security services to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Another example is a $20 million contract in 2020 to develop an AI-powered threat detection system for the US Air Force. I could go on... What might be scarier is I learned this information from reading regular news articles maybe 5-6 years ago, so I've known for a long time that Cloudflare was vaguely involved with, or at least sold services to the U.S. federal government and military. But in 2024 it's very hard to find anything detailed through Google or DuckDuckGo, or even Wikipedia. You can find it on Cloudflare's website when they want to use it for marketing: “Cloudflare has long served the most technical, security-aware agencies like the FBI and U.S Department of State,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare. Source: https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2022/Cloudflare-Earns-FedRAMP-Moderate-Authorization-to-Further-Help-Government-Agencies-Modernize-and-Secure-U.S.-Infrastructure/default.aspx https://cloudflare.net/news/news-details/2022/Cloudflare-Ear... But I like that the LLM is able to really grab the information in a way search engines are getting worse at (through censorship and other algorithmic pressures).

frompdx 2y ago

> Also they do not let you edit the TTL of records That's going to make migrating name-servers painful. What a nightmare. Edit: Just confirmed on my domains that moved. You cannot update the TTL of any record. Can anyone suggest a strategy for safely migrating DNS providers without changing the current TTL settings since they can't be updated?

toast0 2y ago
What do you mean by safely? Step 1) configure your zone(s) on the new server(s) Step 2) update your configured dns servers at the domain registry (usually through an interface at your registrar) Step 3) wait for as long as you feel is appropriate Step 4) remove the zones from your old server(s) Most tlds serve glue records with a ttl of 1-2 days. I'd wait at least that long after the tld servers update before dropping the zone on the old server. But you may want to wait much longer, because some DNS servers cache some records for an unreasonable amount of time. If you can change the NS records on the old servers to point at your new ones, that might help, but it might not. I don't know how much effort you want to put into keeping things working on servers that act unreasonable.
- frompdx 2y ago
  Thanks for the reply. That's roughly the strategy I'm thinking. In the past I would have also reduced the domain TTLs well in advance. You are probably correct about those using unreasonable TTLs on their nameservers.

benlivengood 2y ago

I guess I made the right choice moving to route53 a couple months ago. I can't for the life of me imagine who thought it was a good idea to drop registrar services from GCP. CloudDNS is still functioning and so I left zones there as the authoritative name servers but I'm starting to question why I leave anything in GCP.

captn3m0 2y ago
R53 is great but doesn’t support a lot of the newer TLDs.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jc_811 2y ago

Following up, over 2 days have passed since opening my ticket with SquareSpace support (after waiting 72 hours for DNS), and I have not received a single reply. I've edited DNS records for multiple domains that have not propagated at all. As far as I can tell, it looks like there are major system-wide issues with SquareSpace domain's DNS records propagation. Doesn't seem like it works at all. Can ANYONE in this thread confirm they've have DNS records propagate correctly after a domain was transferred from Google -> SquareSpace?

itsdrewmiller 2y ago
I'm trying for the first time and running into the same problems as you. They do update in the squarespace UI but don't actually get updated in any DNS. It believes the google name servers are its correct defaults - I was thinking about trying to switch to whatever non-google name servers squarespace uses and see if it is smart enough to update those.

youniverse 2y ago

I also use Porkbun, they are great. Anyone tried Cloudflare before? I was thinking of trying them next it seems they sell domains at wholesale prices as it's not how they make money. Along with that vercel billing debacle that recently happened people were recommending cloudflare as an alternative for hosting as well so things could be streamlined a bit.

_akhe 2y ago
Porkbun uses Cloudflare, but you knew that right? This entire thread is a Cloudlfare shill post. PS: Cloudflare vs Vercel. Cloudflare is a military/government contractor that offers outdated and slow cloud products that others have already offered for years. Vercel is a serverless platform who somewhat innovated in that space, designed ideally for Next.js and/or React apps for convenient CI/CD from a github repo. Not the same.

verita_diria 2y ago

A couple dozen of my domains have been migrated from Google Domains to Squarespace. The experience has been seamless so far. All the settings have been retained and the UI is very good compared to other registrar UIs out there that look dated. Your description is confusing to me. A domain migrated from Google Domains to Squarespace retains its zone in Google's Cloud DNS service. In other words, there is no DNS zone migration. The name server entries on all of my migrated domains are *.googledomains.com. If you're saying that Squarespace is having DNS propagation issues for your migrated domains, then Google Cloud is having propagation issues on the Cloud DNS service. We would have likely heard about that in a separate HN thread. But it's not happening. My migrated domains are propagating edited entries just fine. Did you find the actual issue on your domain?

itsdrewmiller 2y ago
I think the issue is the connection between the squarespace management UI and the google DNS service - they probably are not successfully sending your changes over to google which is why nothing is updating. I'm having the exact same problem as OP.