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Google Domains
- esbonsa 12y agoHave you purchased a domain name before? yes and no...
- 2close4comfort 12y agoAhhhhh...its invite only what gives?
- lsh123 12y agoInteresting. Google is going to directly compete with GoDaddy which is about to have IPO. Curious to see the impact on the GoDaddy's price.
- toomuchtodo 12y agohttp://domains.google.com/about/features.html http://domains.google.com/about/features.html Integration with Google cloud resources (a la AWS Route 53), 10 million lookups/year free, pricing appears off the bat to be $12/year, free private registration. And support! "With Google Domains, you get phone and email support (M-F, 9am to 9pm EST)."
- pgrote 12y agoI wonder how they will staff the support. Contractors or employees? Has Google bought a domain company recently? This looks like a sensational service. Curious the sign up for an invitation only asked if you've bought a domain before.
- pdkl95 12y agoIf they do decide to staff the support for this service, instead of their usual "bot or FAQ/help-page only" annoyance... how long until all their OTHER services figure out that this is how you contact a human at Google? Youtube, in particular, comes to mind.
- r00fus 12y agoWill be interesting to see how this fares - perhaps Google can use positive results from here to improve their customer support image (despite Larry Page's voiced opinions saying Google call centers "are ridiculous").
- toomuchtodo 12y agoGoogle has datacenters in low energy cost locations (Oregon, Iowa, etc). Why not source low-cost, quality call center staff from those locations as well ("in sourcing")?
- brewdad 12y agoOregon has one of the highest minimum wages in the country. $9.10 an hour.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoTrying living in Oregon on minimum wage vs living in the Bay Area on minimum wage.
- jebblue 12y agoNo cost for private registration, that would save me some bucks.
- vidyesh 12y agoThis idea is being used by several registrars, they domain registration/renewal priced at a premium price and bundle in other things which makes it look like its worth it. Not that Google would be bad but the price $12 is technically the same as everywhere. Example at Namecheap : New Registration : Domain Price + Whois guard is FREE for 1 year ( With a coupon code your domain cost is reduce by $1-$2 )[1] Transfer : Its treated as a new registration too, so the same applies. And usually transfer has some coupon or discount attached.[1] Renewal : Domain costs + Whois guard is $2.88 [2] ( With coupon code your domain cost is reduced by $1-$2. So effectively its comes to be at the same price. Now talking about Google, the only awesome thing I can see it provides with $12 is we get to use their Apps for Business which includes their robust email service [3] of course. This recently became paid-only service.[4] Now its not unlimited accounts but 100 alias is enough if you have multiple domains and just need one account to handle everything. 1. https://www.namecheap.com/promos/coupons.aspx https://www.namecheap.com/promos/coupons.aspx 2. https://www.namecheap.com/security/whoisguard.aspx https://www.namecheap.com/security/whoisguard.aspx 3. http://domains.google.com/about/features.html http://domains.google.com/about/features.html 4. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html
- spacefight 12y agoSo 10 mio lookups free. That means they will log each and every lookup... more tracking. Something they said they won't do on 8.8.8.8.
- southflorida 12y agoand speed of site will never be an issue (host wise)... and indexing out the gate. wish i would have waited to buy that domain i just had to have saturday night :/
- uptown 12y agoWhat'd you buy?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- 2close4comfort 12y agothe price seems to inc DNS and subdomains if you get all that for 12$/yr that would be pretty neat
- sogen 12y agowow, first Google's phone support
- dag11 12y agoThe Glass Explorer program had (has) phone support.
- dharma1 12y agoGoogle apps for business have phone support
- colinbartlett 12y agoAdwords definitely has phone support.
- sroussey 12y agoAdSense has phone support. If you generate enough revenue.
- vachi 12y agogoogle has attempted domain names previously, and it has previously sucked, very badly, 1. you could never get to a customer support, no phone number, and emails were all auto responses sending you to faq 2. there was no dedicated dashboard for domain management, billing etc this is a revamp and product consolidation and it is super late to the game, hopefully the transition for current users will be easy
- freejack 12y agoThe reason it was unsupported was because they were just fronting for godaddy and enom and expected that you'd get support for the domains from those registrars directly.
- tinkerrr 12y ago"No additional cost for private registration" is badly required in the industry, and glad to see Google take the lead. Also, there should be an option to 301 redirect your blogspot blog to a domain held by Google. Lots of bloggers have outgrown their .blogspot.com blogs.
- vsakos 12y agoActually, namesilo offers free whois privacy. http://www.namesilo.com/ http://www.namesilo.com/
- wtracy 12y agohttp://register4less.com/ http://register4less.com/ offers free private registration. No affiliation, just a happy customer.
- anonova 12y agoGandi (https://www.gandi.net/ https://www.gandi.net/) is quite well-known for having free private domain registration.
- JoshTriplett 12y agoAnd unlike many such services, they still list you as the owner of the domain; they just mask the email/address/phone information.
- anonova 12y agoI'm not sure if this is a positive or negative comment, but I'll explain why they do that. There are two main ways to mask domain name whois information: 1) go through a proxy service, i.e., a company buys the domain under their name and gives you control, or 2) effectively use another entity's contact information with the exception of name, which is what Gandi does. a) is rather risky to both parties. You do not own the domain, but another entity does. If you somehow lose the domain name or the entity holding the name goes under, you won't be able to get it back because it technically never belonged to you. The holder is also now legally responsible for the domain name. b) is a much safer route with the constraint that your name must be attached to the domain name. This makes it so you always remain responsible for and the registrant of the domain name. It is yours.
- pyrophane 12y agoAny idea what TLDs they currently support?
- rhizome 12y agoNot on your life. Domains simply aren't complicated or expensive enough to think twice about feeding Google's consolidation and analytics game. Perhaps harsh, but come on. Domains.
- Paul_Dessert 12y agoAgree 1000%. Just one more way for them to connect the dots. No thanks.
- colinbartlett 12y agoThey have had registrar-level access for quite some time already, presumably using that to "connect the dots" of domain ownership. So this just takes it to the next level... now they can see 'inside' private domain registrations? What else could they do with this that they can't already do? Hmm.
- personZ 12y agoThey can see every DNS lookup if you use their nameservers.
- laureny 12y agoI'm excited. Not so much by the fact that Google now provides this service (which I may or may not use) but because this is going to put a tremendous amount of pressure on other ISP's, and competition is badly needed in this field.
- pdknsk 12y ago> Use Google Synthetic Records for integration with Google App Engine, subdomain forwarding and Google Apps setup What is Google Synthetic Records? Google Search doesn't know.
- colinbartlett 12y agoIf I had to guess, it offers a service similar to what Route 53 and DNSimple offer for cloud-hosted apps: A CNAME-like functionality but that functions at the root level record.
- ep103 12y agoSo now my domains can be hosted by a company famed for its responsive and transparent customer service!
- anigbrowl 12y agoI would far rather deal with Google than GoDaddy or some of the other domain registrants I've dealt with. I realize some people have had poor customer service experiences with Google, but mine have always been OK. Obviously I speak as a consumer, if I were running a business depending on Google services my support needs would be more urgent and my expectations higher.
- colinbartlett 12y agoI would rather deal with DNSimple than Google.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoTry Hover. Customer support is great and there's zero up-selling when buying a domain. It's a couple dollars more than GoDaddy but more than worth it.
- ZanderEarth32 12y agoHover is without a doubt the best domain registrar I've dealt with.
- deciplex 12y agoe: nevermind they fixed it
- bwblabs 12y agoDomain name registrar like Hover, NameCheap, NameBright and NameSilo still do not yet support DNSSEC (nor have an ETA for it!). Here is a list of DNSSEC supporting registrars: https://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/dnssec/deployment https://www.icann.org/en/news/in-focus/dnssec/deployment Based on pricing ($9.99/.com) and a growing irritation with GoDaddy, I finally moved my domains to Dynadot: https://www.dynadot.com/ https://www.dynadot.com/ They have a (custom) 2FA app and 2FA SMS. BTW this friend referral https://www.dynadot.com/?s9N6j7d9G8B07i73 https://www.dynadot.com/?s9N6j7d9G8B07i73 gives you & me $5 after purchase.
- eli 12y agoHasn't Google's been a registrar for years? You could register a domain for $10 as part of signing up for Apps at least 2 or 3 years ago. I guess the new part is they're offering it standalone? Seems like a lead gen effort for AdWords/AdSense more than a serious product.
- freejack 12y agoThat offering was just a referral/signup for Godaddy and enom.
- eli 12y agoDidn't realize that. Maybe I was confusing it with their service acting a registry (as opposed to registrar): https://www.google.com/registry/index.html https://www.google.com/registry/index.html I could have sworn it was possible to register domains directly through Google, but I guess it could have been a cleverly disguised front-end to another registrar.
- thekevan 12y agoI don't know about that. I registered one through Blogger, went to renew it later and they were no longer offering that service from Google.
- briholt 12y agoIs there nothing Google won't compete with?
- TeMPOraL 12y agoAs long as they keep providing superior services, I'm personally fine with that.
- shiftpgdn 12y agoCan you name a product where Google provides superior customer service?
- gress 12y agoThis isn't about providing superior services - it's about consolidating the flow of information.
- rett12 12y agoBeware of those who would control your access to information, for in their hearts they dream themselves your master.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- thegeomaster 12y agoAny suggestions on how one gets an invite? How broad is the program?
- sneilan 12y agoWhatever. Why not just go to namecheap and get a domain there? There is nothing special enough about this service to make me want to use it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- pstop 12y agoAn invite only beta to an at request service? That's kinda dumb. It most certainly won't be a representative sample.
- tnuc 12y agoBut it will stop 100,000 people all trying to do domain transfers at once. I don't think anyone to try and support something like that.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> It most certainly won't be a representative sample. They don't want a representative sample, and they say that (and how they want it to be non-representative) right on the page. So, why is that even an objection?
- pstop 12y agoYou're absolutely correct, and had I read the "Talk to us" section, I wouldn't have written that comment. Thank you for pointing it out.
- dota168 12y agoInvite-only beta.... watch the hype fade away in a week and everyone will forget this exists (hello Google+)
- jimktrains2 12y agoAnd Wave?
- thedufer 12y agoYes, I remember quite distinctly when that happened to GMail as well.
- personZ 12y agogmail completely upset the mail game, offering a product that was so outrageous that most took it as an April fools joke. This...looks like a registrar + nameservers, and doesn't seem to really differentiate itself in any compelling way at all. Name serving + registration anywhere else, or at two separate places, isn't that different in price from the price they show in their screenshot. Invite only for something like this is incredibly lame. I mean, whoever thought they'd pull that tactic again needs to seriously be corralled. It is amateur hour.
- vemy 12y agoGMail was a completely different ballgame. This just looks like your generic domain registrar. There are thousands of them already.
- lwh 12y agoWill my pagerank increase if I register with one of their TLDs?
- marban 12y agoYour move, Amazon.
- jonthn 12y agoWhen a giant shakes, everyone moves. It doesn't even have to be particularly disruptive -- this is good for everyone who owns or brokers domains.
- joeframbach 12y agoSerious question: What happens in three years when Google decides to "sunset" this service like Wave, Labs, Reader, Buzz, Code Search, Knol, etc? Their target audience doesn't know how to work with registrars, which puts them in the worst possible situation when Google Domains is dropped. Will they help their users transition to other registrars?
- colinbartlett 12y agoHas Google ever "sunset" a product they actually charge money for? That might help us understand what they'd do in this case. But I don't think there's a lot of precedent there.
- dublinben 12y agoGoogle discontinued (presumably paid) radio and television ads a few months after starting each. This does seem entirely like a whimsical side project for Google. If you want a reliable domain registrar, find one that doesn't do anything else.
- jonknee 12y ago> This does seem entirely like a whimsical side project for Google. If you want a reliable domain registrar, find one that doesn't do anything else. Seems pretty logical to me considering they have a very popular email and cloud business that requires you to have a domain.
- JeremyBanks 12y agoGoogle is not just a registrar, but a registry, with 19 TLDs that they will operate: https://www.google.com/registry/ https://www.google.com/registry/ They're in the domain business now, and I don't think they're going to drop out any time soon.
- yeukhon 12y agoI see the first popular attempt to register if .NEWS is available is hacker.news.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- vowelless 12y ago> Create up to 100 email aliases with your domain, such as help@your_company.com or sales@your_company.com, and have them forwarded to existing email accounts, like you@gmail.com. This way, your email is a professional reflection of your business. So there are no actual email boxes included?
- jyxent 12y agoI assume that is where Google Apps comes in.
- andybak 12y agoOr a free Gmail account for incoming mail. The only missing part of the jigsaw would be an SMTP server - otherwise your email appears to others with something like 'sent on behalf of' or similar (depending on the mail client).
- dclara 12y agoGoDaddy gives you one email box with your domain name so that when you reply the email, it is sent from the real email account.
- thedufer 12y agoIt sounds like you're looking for Google Apps (http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/index.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/index.html). Although since they'll let you forward to a free gmail account, it seems you're pretty covered.
- thisisdallas 12y agoIt's probably similar to Office 365 and the email alias option. With Office 365 you can set up a number of email aliases that can all be directed to one inbox. The downside is that you can't send from those alias. You will always only have one "sending" email address, unless of course you pay for another user inbox.
- spindritf 12y agoThis is great. Google is a company that is very serious about security, and has essentially no customer support so no way to social engineer your way around that security. Perfect for domains.
- boredinballard 12y agoGoogle does indeed have customer support, for paid products. Very good support in my opinion, I've called them for Google Apps support and Adwords, they were very helpful and hold times were super short.
- threeseed 12y agoI've had the opposite experience. Dreadful support for paid Google Apps although we were a small startup.
- joshbaptiste 12y agoHilarious comment, indeed social engineering is out the window on this one.
- jqueryin 12y agoJust as an aside, the startup I work at provides these services with Google Apps included. We handle automatic domain registration, DNS setup, automate the process of verifying your Google Apps account, allow Single Sign-On to GMail, and more. I'm guessing the tech crowd would particularly find the automated google verification interesting. The other best part is we match the pricing of a Google Apps for Business account and offer a 15 day free trial with no credit card required. We partner with the likes of Startup Weekend and .CO since our goal is to help you get your ideas online fast. For those of you interested in checking it out, I'd love feedback: https://pop.co https://pop.co
- glomph 12y agoIs reselling Google Apps allowed by their terms of service?
- spindritf 12y agoThey have a whole reseller program https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/business/landing/partners/resellers/program-details.html https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/business/land...
- jqueryin 12y agoGoogle Apps for Business offers a Reseller program complete with APIs.
- pbreit 12y agoLooks pretty nice. I'm still startled at how lousy the options are for new (smaller) businesses wanting to get online (ie, Wix and Weebly). Google Apps is now $50/year?
- jqueryin 12y agoYou're correct on the pricing. For a single seat license with Google Apps, you'll spend $5/mo or $50/yr depending on your payment plan. We offer the same pricing model which includes the domain, an email address, DNS, a Starter Page, and our simplified interface.
- joell 12y agoRequest Invite: https://domains.google.com/registrar https://domains.google.com/registrar
- tdicola 12y agoI don't get it, I already have a domain managed by Google with my Google apps account. I understand they shut off this service for new signups a while back. So are they releasing a _new_ managed domain service? How long until I am forced to go through some ugly merge process to put my Google apps account onto this new system? Would really love to hear the rationale for killing the old service to replace it with something that looks a heck of a lot like the old service. After shutting down Reader and all the trouble my Google apps account already gives me (every new Google service has issues with Google apps accounts in my experience) and other annoying things I really hope Google doesn't screw up my email. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
- renata 12y agoThis is domain registration, not Google Apps associated with a domain. Google is moving into GoDaddy/Namecheap/Gandi space here. Once this opens up I imagine you can just transfer your domain from your current registrar and nothing will change in your Google Apps account.
- fourstar 12y agoOnce again, Google trying to consolidate all the eggs into a single basket.
- bhartzer 12y agoReally, Google? You are calling the new gTLDs "domain endings"? Is that what we're supposed to call them?
- bjt 12y agoThe tie-in with Weebly, Squarespace, Shopify, etc. tells me they're targeting the low end of the market. Freelance photographers, caterers, and people currently selling stuff on Etsy. If I were targeting that market, I would also prefer "domain endings" over "gTLDs".
- bhartzer 12y agobjt, that target market needs to be educated. Call them what they are, and don't make up "silly names" for them. What if they were selling pickup trucks? Would they call it a car that has a place in the back for your stuff?
- dragonwriter 12y ago> You are calling the new gTLDs "domain endings"? Actually, they seem to be calling TLDs (not just the new ones, and not just gTLDs) "domain endings" and referring to the new ones as "new domain endings". > Is that what we're supposed to call them? People that know what "gTLD" means can continue to call them that, but in marketing to people who don't know anything about buying domains and are doing it for the first time -- a significant target of this effort, I suspect -- "domain endings" is clearer and more accessible.
- pdkl95 12y agoThis, like their experiment at hiding URLs in the browser, smells like an attempt at muddying the concept of "domain". People need to be educated about this new literacy. Instead, we have the people in the best position to do that education possibly trying to maintain ignorance. sigh
- badclient 12y agoI'm amazed that Google did not buy godaddy when it was purchased by private equity.
- Angostura 12y agoIf you were Google, would you want to support/build on/integrate GoDaddy's existing systems, or would you prefer to go for a clean start?
- nospecinterests 12y agoprediction: Lots of people will sign-up. These people will love the service. They will come to need this service for their businesses to survive and function properly. Two years afterward Google will do what they have done time and time again, close down the service - for unknown reasons - at every users expense. Will it happen? I don't know but they just don't have my trust for the long term. Yes, I know that you can transfer domains fairly easily but nothing is ever that easy.
- gmays 12y agoA couple weeks ago when the new Google My Business platform (http://www.google.com/business/ http://www.google.com/business/) was introduced I thought it was very interesting. To me it signaled Google's interest in entering the small business game by building a platform for SMBs to have a consolidated online presence. They wouldn't have combined the products and created a platform if they didn't plan to expand it. I thought about how significant it'd be if Google included some sort of website builder along with the Google My Business platform. They organically have more reach with SMBs than any competitor can afford to buy. That combined with the high switching costs of websites and they have a massive opportunity as long as they don't misunderstand their target market. Now they're offering domains and teaming up with some of the biggest website builders out there. I'd wager that 1) it's only a matter of time until their domain service is offered as part of Google My Business and 2) they offer their own website builder/CMS. The website builder industry is competitive and noncompetitive at the same time. The companies that spend the most on marketing have the shittiest products and the companies with the most product potential 1) don't advertise or 2) don't cater to small businesses as much as they should. They're all asleep at the wheel in one way or another.
- kin 12y agoGreat news to me, recently switched from GoDaddy to Namecheap and I still don't like the experience.
- nachteilig 12y agoRight now I have a reseller account with OpenSRS/Tucows, and I have to say that this service from Google interests me. OpenSRS has seemingly been stuck in the 90s with UI stuff for a while now, and recently started charing $3/year extra for private registration. Looks like I'll give it a try as soon as I get an invite.
- andrewgjohnson 12y agoContinues to surprise me that there isn't some kind of registrar service as part of the suite of services provided via AWS. I suppose ditto to the Google Cloud platform. This is great, I'm especially drawn to the built in "up to 100" email aliases. Sounds like it may only cover the receiving of @your_company.com emails and not sending but definitely a nice start, particularly in a Google Apps is pay-only world.
- Thiz 12y agoThey stole $200 from my adsense account accusing me of clicking my own ads, which I never did. Their automated system never let me prove I didn't do it so they just stole my money. I give a flying fuck if I was a false positive in a huge corporation with millions of customers they can't serve all with quality support. No, Im not giving them my business never again until they apologize.
- Garbage 12y agoI don't know if this is true or not, but some guy has "leaked" some information about AdSense "fraud" - http://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h http://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h
- owenversteeg 12y agoBased on a screenshot [0] the price appears to be $12/yr. [0] http://domains.google.com/about/img/sprites/features.png http://domains.google.com/about/img/sprites/features.png
- hysan 12y ago> Talk to us > We aren’t ready for everyone to join yet (you currently need an invitation code to buy or transfer a domain), so we want those who join to play an active role in helping us improve. We're working hard to offer our customers the best domain experience possible, and we welcome your input, questions and feedback. For a company that is notoriously bad at communicating with its customers, this is the one thing I would expect Google to not get right. Even at the private invite scale, I seriously wonder if Google will be communicating with customers with the tact and empathy required of good customer service.
- stormbrew 12y agoFree whois privacy. Hopefully this pushes some other dns providers to do the same.
- hackuser 12y ago"Private" domain registrations result in your domain being registered to the privacy service and not to you. At least, that was true for the ones I looked into. That may not matter to some people, but it could be a problem to have that critical resource outside your organization's control. EDIT: See the posts re Gandhi, whose privacy service apparently leaves the domain registered to you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7934145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7934145
- josephb 12y agoNamesilo include whois privacy and email forwarding for $8.99 This seems like a 30 percent premium over other offerings currently available, no doubt the value is there for some folks.
- saeedjabbar 12y agoLooking forward to giving this a shot.
- lsiebert 12y agoSo, where can we get an invite?
- sudonim 12y agoI can't be the only one who likes using different businesses for different services? It's bad enough to use Google for email, calendar, docs. I wouldn't buy with / transfer my business domains to them. http://gandi.net http://gandi.net and http://dnsimple.com http://dnsimple.com are both great options in this space.
- tambourine_man 12y agoI'm glad they are more focused on their core competences and are not distracted by side projects. I'm also glad to see the amount of work that went on developing this site, white text over white background, for example, is super readable. Sweating the details indeed. http://i.imgur.com/rcTAu9l.jpg http://i.imgur.com/rcTAu9l.jpg
- jfoster 12y agoI think this is an MVP. The domain search functionality leads to a form where you request an invite, driven by Google Forms.
- kolev 12y agoAt $12/year, I'm not leaving GoDaddy, which pricing nobody can beat. With the Domain Club pricing, I get .com at $8.19. The only thing GoDaddy lacks is an API, but can't pay 50% just for this luxury.
- fuzz_junket 12y agoOh look. An opportunity to let Google own even more of the Internet. Let's do it.
- chatmasta 12y agoSo it is now possible to give Google, who is solely responsible for a high percentage of your site's traffic, access to: - Your traffic (Search) - Your analytics (Analytics) - Your income (AdSense) - Your advertising (AdWords) - Your hosting (App Engine) - Your DNS (Cloud DNS) - Your domains (this) That gives their search algorithm a pretty full picture of who owns your website, where you get your content, how much customers like it, any other sites you own, how much traffic you get, how much money you make. And they can delist you whenever they want. No thanks. I'll keep my Google to a minimum.
- pdkl95 12y ago> So it is now possible to give Google ^^^^^^ I believe you misspelled "NSA"? Jokes (sorta?) aside, this betrays a serious failure in the way many people use network services such as those in your list - they often lack a second source. Since when did it become ok to have only one supplier for your mission-critical needs?
- tomlongson 12y agoGoogle != NSA. Google is working with the NSA to provide front door access, but are working to prevent back door spying by the agency. This may sound pedantic, but it's better to be precise with serious issues such as this.
- motters 12y agoHaving briefly looked at this I don't think I'd recommend it, especially if you are a "non US person reasonably believed to be outside of the US". Minimising dependency on Google, or any single company for that matter, is a good idea.
- waitingkuo 12y agoIs it a Business as a Service? Seems it'll integrate lots of SaaS such like Shopify, Weebly, ...etc
- dcc1 12y ago1. Can't pay with bitcoin so staying with namecheap 2. Google offers 0 support 3. Google rolls over to quickly to copyright requests, whats to stop them from pulling the domain from under you No thanks
- tomlongson 12y agoLove that Namecheap is making it easy to pay!
- robomartin 12y agoRight or wrong, and from more than one angle, this is the way I look at it: First, the last thing I want on the internet is a monopoly. Google, for all intents and purposes, is a monopoly when it comes to search and advertising. Because of that it has unique power to attempt to own other areas. If Google was known for great customer service and generally benevolent behavior this might be OK. The reality is that many of us have had really ugly experiences with this company. I don't buy the distinction being made in terms of paid vs. unpaid services. Every Google service is paid. Every single one of them. Don't think so? Then why doesn't Google turn off ads on "free" services? No, people are paying with cash or with eyeballs-on-adds. Either way Google is monetizing each and every set of eyeballs in some way. "Free" is an illusion. Competition is great, but Google is not a competitor it's a nassive search monopoly that could easily use that monopoly to favor any one of it's products over competitors who depend on Google search and rankings for their very survival. At a minimum it is a potentially huge conflict of interest. If Google registers your domains, hosts your sites, runs your ads, places ads on your site, runs your email, provides your analytics and provides your search-based traffic you are one button click away from various incredible nightmare scenario each and every morning 365 days per year. So, no, thanks, but no. I've been saying "no" to you for years, ever since that time you behaved badly, cost my clients a huge chunk of their business and all we could do was scream at a computer monitor. No, thank you. I will stick with other excellent choices for domain registration. I will also stick to Linode and AWS for my servers. And I will stick to building sites supported by something other than advertising revenue. I will also host my own email, which isn't hard at all. I will use your analytics and, if needed, I will do some advertising with you. Alhough, lately, using Facebook intelligently for that last part is producing better results. In other words, having learned my lessons I will not allow my clients or myself to walk into a situation where you can hurt us by behaving as you often do. I just can't see trusting Google. Trust is one of those things that costs massively more to regain once lost. Google has done absolutley nothing to regain the trust of those of us who have seen what can happen. Live long and prosper.
- insky 12y agoI remember getting my Bigfoot for life email address. It didn't exactly last that long. But basically that was email forwarding. But you had to change your reply-to in outgoing emails, and it was a little confusing for recipients. Email forwarding, doesn't stop Google reading the mail as it goes through transit. Which is a little unsettling. I'd be interested to hear/read their privacy policy regarding this.