Google Domains

by jnymck • 12 years ago

362 230 12 years ago

Ahhhhh...its invite only what gives?

lsh123• 12 years ago

Interesting. Google is going to directly compete with GoDaddy which is about to have IPO. Curious to see the impact on the GoDaddy's price.

toomuchtodo5• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

I 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.

pdkl953• 12 years ago

If 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• 12 years ago

Will 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").

toomuchtodo5• 12 years ago

Google 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")?

jebblue• 12 years ago

No cost for private registration, that would save me some bucks.

vidyesh• 12 years ago

This 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

2. https://www.namecheap.com/security/whoisguard.aspx

3. http://domains.google.com/about/features.html

4. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html

spacefight• 12 years ago

So 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• 12 years ago

and 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• 12 years ago

What'd you buy?

sogen• 12 years ago

wow, first Google's phone support

dag11• 12 years ago

The Glass Explorer program had (has) phone support.

dharma1• 12 years ago

Google apps for business have phone support

colinbartlett5• 12 years ago

Adwords definitely has phone support.

sroussey• 12 years ago

AdSense has phone support. If you generate enough revenue.

vachi• 12 years ago

google 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

freejack2• 12 years ago

The 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• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

Actually, namesilo offers free whois privacy. http://www.namesilo.com/

wtracy• 12 years ago

http://register4less.com/ offers free private registration. No affiliation, just a happy customer.

anonova3• 12 years ago

Gandi (https://www.gandi.net/) is quite well-known for having free private domain registration.

JoshTriplett2• 12 years ago

And unlike many such services, they still list you as the owner of the domain; they just mask the email/address/phone information.

RexRollman• 12 years ago

Love Gandi. I can't say if their customer service is good, though, because I have yet to have any issues.

davidcollantes• 12 years ago

Could you provide the exact link for this? I have looked to no avail.

fireismyflag• 12 years ago

Actually 1&1 has been offering that free private registration for a while. I switched from GoDaddy a few years ago.

staunch• 12 years ago

I paid $8/yr to register my domains with 1&1 now they've upped the price to $15/yr. Fuck them.

0xjvm• 12 years ago

So does Dreamhost.

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Domain_WHOIS_Privacy_Service

forgotAgain• 12 years ago

I wonder if that includes private from Google's internal uses?

eunice• 12 years ago

Hover do this (& I highly recommend them)

pyrophane• 12 years ago

Any idea what TLDs they currently support?

rhizome2• 12 years ago

Not 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• 12 years ago

Agree 1000%. Just one more way for them to connect the dots. No thanks.

colinbartlett5• 12 years ago

They 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.

laureny• 12 years ago

I'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• 12 years 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.

colinbartlett5• 12 years ago

If 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• 12 years ago

So now my domains can be hosted by a company famed for its responsive and transparent customer service!

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

I 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.

colinbartlett5• 12 years ago

I would rather deal with DNSimple than Google.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

Try 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.

jggonz2• 12 years ago

I haven't had a bad experience with Google's technical support either, but their technical support tends to work like this:

1. Hunt for solutions to your problem on forums.

2. Discover the magic link where you can submit a form with a message regarding your problem.

3. Sit back and wait for 24 hours.

4. Your problem is resolved, and you may or may not receive an email stating that the issue was resolved.

Communication is completely one way for most products.

GigabyteCoin• 12 years ago

I would far rather deal with Google than GoDaddy

Would you rather deal with Google as opposed to Namecheap? A great company with superb support that specializes in nothing but domain names and dedicated hosting?

I wouldn't.

marban2• 12 years ago

I've never needed support from any registrar as long as the AUTH Code retrieval and unlock process works...

ddorian432• 12 years ago

Google: Our bot has blocked your domain for a specific reason. Please whine on hackernews and hope for frontpage to reach support.

GutenYe• 12 years ago

Where can I get an invite code?

aviraldg• 12 years ago

Support

With Google Domains, you get phone and email support (M-F, 9am to 9pm EST).

opendais7• 12 years ago

And if it goes down at 9:01pm?

No thanks. I'd rather have 24/7 support.

jpatokal• 12 years ago

While that implies Domains support will be offered in US business hours only, most Google enterprise products offer 9-5 support worldwide, which effectively translates to 24/6. (Yes, 6, there's still a gap between Friday 5 PM PST and Monday morning in Asia.)

https://support.google.com/enterprisehelp/answer/142244?rd=1

hugi• 12 years ago

Oh, come now… At least they'll be careful about your privacy.

Justsignedup• 12 years ago

When dealing with Google Apps, if they are not satisfied that my issue is perfectly resolved in a very short period of time, they hunted me down until I confirmed that everything was working honkey dorey. That includes cold-calling me to ensure everything is good. Their support is top notch for paid products.

richardkmichael• 12 years ago

Yup, +1. I had a few questions during an Exchange to Google Apps migration last week, and I [voice] called support - they took my call, called back, followed up by email and voice and allowed me to re-open the case as required with related questions; all with the same support representative. Top notch, happy to be paying.

callmeed• 12 years ago

That's not what "cold calling" means ...

david_shaw• 12 years ago

I had a dissimilar experience. I upgraded our account to the Apps for Business trial. Although it was neat, I didn't really need it - so when the trial ended, I decided to revert to my free account.

It turns out they don't let you do that. "Free trial" means 30 days free, then it's Apps for Business or no Apps at all.

I felt (and, to some extent, still feel) extorted by that. The customer service experience was extremely dissatisfying. So, will I eventually use Google Domains? Probably. I just won't depend on it without a failsafe - which is what I should have done since the beginning.

bakareika2• 12 years ago

Exactly my thoughts. It may be acceptable-ish for a personal home page, but using this for anything that's remotely useful and/or has more than one user, no way in hell.

Already tried that with email (Google Apps for Business), and the punishment was swift like the new Apple programming language.

mijoharas• 12 years ago

Hahaha, can't say I'm sure about your point (don't disagree, just reserving judgement for now) but I've gotta upvote the comment for your swift pun :)

S4M• 12 years ago

and the punishment was swift like the new Apple programming language What happened exactly?

benackles• 12 years ago

Are you being sarcastic? Although it might not be well-known, Google actually does have excellent customer service. Google Places, Google AdWords and Google Analytics all have excellent customer support. My only complaint is that Google Analytics isn't as clearly listed if you're not an AdWords user.

antr• 12 years ago

Sadly, it's not that different to most other domain registrars.

eli3• 12 years ago

Hasn'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.

freejack2• 12 years ago

That offering was just a referral/signup for Godaddy and enom.

eli3• 12 years ago

Didn'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

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• 12 years ago

I 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• 12 years ago

Is there nothing Google won't compete with?

TeMPOraL2• 12 years ago

As long as they keep providing superior services, I'm personally fine with that.

gress• 12 years ago

This isn't about providing superior services - it's about consolidating the flow of information.

rett12• 12 years ago

Beware of those who would control your access to information, for in their hearts they dream themselves your master.

shiftpgdn2• 12 years ago

Can you name a product where Google provides superior customer service?

thegeomaster• 12 years ago

Any suggestions on how one gets an invite? How broad is the program?

pstop2• 12 years ago

An invite only beta to an at request service? That's kinda dumb. It most certainly won't be a representative sample.

tnuc• 12 years ago

But 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.

dragonwriter3• 12 years 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?

pstop2• 12 years ago

You'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• 12 years ago

Invite-only beta....

watch the hype fade away in a week and everyone will forget this exists (hello Google+)

jimktrains2• 12 years ago

And Wave?

thedufer2• 12 years ago

Yes, I remember quite distinctly when that happened to GMail as well.

personZ2• 12 years ago

gmail 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.

vemy2• 12 years ago

GMail was a completely different ballgame. This just looks like your generic domain registrar. There are thousands of them already.

lwh• 12 years ago

Will my pagerank increase if I register with one of their TLDs?

marban2• 12 years ago

Your move, Amazon.

jonthn• 12 years ago

When 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• 12 years ago

Serious 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?

colinbartlett5• 12 years ago

Has 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• 12 years ago

Google 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.

vertex-four• 12 years ago

Sure, Postini. They basically transferred everyone over to Google Apps. I'm not entirely sure how that worked, though.

rasengan• 12 years ago

Google Checkout

smcnally• 12 years ago

Not a lot of precedent, but Wildfire, a Social Marketing Suite they acquired, is one

http://socialmediatoday.com/jordanv/2264086/google-sunsets-w...

eli3• 12 years ago

Hopefully transferring domains is easy regardless. I wouldn't ever recommend a registrar that was hard to quit.

mattzito• 12 years ago

It's been years since I worked in the domain name space, but as I recall vaguely, part of the registrar accreditation agreement is that you have provisions to transition your customer domain names to another registrar in the event you stop being a registrar, voluntarily or involuntarily.

The way this has worked in the past (again iirc) with other companies is that the registrar wholesale migrated their names to another provider who purchased them at a discount.

I've never been through the process personally, but given the quantity of registrars that are going into and out of business from time to time, I'm sure it's a process that's been pretty well standardized.

ArtDev3• 12 years ago

Thanks, that is really good to know.

StavrosK2• 12 years ago

I had to move my domains from an unresponsive/dead registrar (NameTerrific). I emailed Tucows (the parent?) and they sent me a domain migration code for the domain. It was pretty simple, luckily.

ohashi• 12 years ago

You are correct. Look up RegisterFly for an example of a registrar going under. GoDaddy took over their customers.

dragonwriter3• 12 years ago

Serious question: What happens in three years when Google decides to "sunset" this service like Wave, Labs, Reader, Buzz, Code Search, Knol, etc?

Any company can close a service (or go out of business and close all its service), and if a service fails to make a profit, eventually the company will almost certainly do so, one way or the other.

The only reason Google has a high count of such services is because Google went through a period where it started lots of services (and, also, because its remixed and rebranded a lot of services, so that more service names have gotten retired than actual services.) There's no strong reason to think that the actual risk -- particularly with paid services -- is particularly high with Google.

rbanffy• 12 years ago

Not sure what the terms for Domains are, but for App Engine they will give you at least one year, IIRC. They introduced the policy when they started charging for the platform.

uses• 12 years ago

Yeah, there is no way I'd trust Google with something as important as domains.

At this point they create and destroy products on a whim. They have 900 products so who cares if a million users get pissed.

Like Google Play Music All Access or any number of modern Google Things, this is something they're doing because "what if we don't", not because they have anything special to provide.

pragmaticalien8• 12 years ago

ICANN has policies in place if a "Registrar" goes under. They will request other "Registrars" to take over.

vowelless• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

I assume that is where Google Apps comes in.

andybak• 12 years ago

Or 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).

thedufer2• 12 years ago

It sounds like you're looking for Google Apps (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• 12 years ago

It'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.

spindritf2• 12 years ago

This 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• 12 years ago

Google 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• 12 years ago

I've had the opposite experience.

Dreadful support for paid Google Apps although we were a small startup.

joshbaptiste• 12 years ago

Hilarious comment, indeed social engineering is out the window on this one.

jqueryin5• 12 years ago

Just 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

glomph• 12 years ago

Is reselling Google Apps allowed by their terms of service?

spindritf2• 12 years ago

They have a whole reseller program https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/business/land...

jqueryin5• 12 years ago

Google Apps for Business offers a Reseller program complete with APIs.

pbreit• 12 years ago

Looks 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?

jqueryin5• 12 years ago

You'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.

gmays2• 12 years ago

I agree with your point on lousy options for small businesses. See my other comment in this thread. The SMB website market is ripe for disruption.

dsl• 12 years ago

It looks like you registered your own domain with GoDaddy and use NeuStar for DNS. I also can't find you guys listed on the ICANN accredited registrar list.

Not really providing "these services." Just a web hosting shop with some automation and reseller agreements. Sorry.

jqueryin5• 12 years ago

We are by no means aiming to be a web hosting shop; it's not in our trajectory at all. Our Starter Page is solely a means to provide users something quick and easy to setup that's not overly confusing. For many, it's an interim page while they setup their own custom site.

In regards to accredited registrars, there's plenty of low hanging fruit out there and building out a registrar was not in our sites for our initial launch.

I can comment that EPP is in scope and we're doing some really cool shit behind the scenes in upcoming releases that would satiate your qualms in the future. I can't really comment on all fronts; but stay tuned!

joell• 12 years ago

Request Invite:

https://domains.google.com/registrar

tdicola• 12 years ago

I 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• 12 years ago

This 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• 12 years ago

Once again, Google trying to consolidate all the eggs into a single basket.

bhartzer2• 12 years ago

Really, Google? You are calling the new gTLDs "domain endings"? Is that what we're supposed to call them?

bjt• 12 years ago

The 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".

bhartzer2• 12 years ago

bjt, 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?

dragonwriter3• 12 years 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.

pdkl953• 12 years ago

This, 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• 12 years ago

I'm amazed that Google did not buy godaddy when it was purchased by private equity.

Angostura• 12 years ago

If 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• 12 years ago

prediction:

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.

gmays2• 12 years ago

A couple weeks ago when the new Google My Business platform (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.

esbonsa• 12 years ago

Have you purchased a domain name before? yes and no...

kin• 12 years ago

Great news to me, recently switched from GoDaddy to Namecheap and I still don't like the experience.

nachteilig• 12 years ago

Right 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• 12 years ago

Continues 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• 12 years ago

They 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• 12 years ago

I don't know if this is true or not, but some guy has "leaked" some information about AdSense "fraud" - http://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h

dorfsmay• 12 years ago

If this is true, why didn't that person anonymously leak proofs to the FBI or wikileak?

john2x• 12 years ago

Wouldn't keeping someone earning $5000 on AdSense make more sense financially for them?

owenversteeg• 12 years ago

Based on a screenshot [0] the price appears to be $12/yr.

[0] http://domains.google.com/about/img/sprites/features.png

hysan• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

Free whois privacy. Hopefully this pushes some other dns providers to do the same.

hackuser• 12 years 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

josephb• 12 years ago

Namesilo 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• 12 years ago

Looking forward to giving this a shot.

lsiebert• 12 years ago

So, where can we get an invite?

sudonim• 12 years ago

I 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 and http://dnsimple.com are both great options in this space.

tambourine_man• 12 years ago

I'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

jfoster• 12 years ago

I think this is an MVP. The domain search functionality leads to a form where you request an invite, driven by Google Forms.

kolev• 12 years ago

At $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• 12 years ago

Oh look. An opportunity to let Google own even more of the Internet. Let's do it.

chatmasta• 12 years ago

So 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.

pdkl953• 12 years 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?

tomlongson2• 12 years ago

Google != 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• 12 years ago

Having 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• 12 years ago

Is it a Business as a Service? Seems it'll integrate lots of SaaS such like Shopify, Weebly, ...etc

dcc1• 12 years ago

1. 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

tomlongson2• 12 years ago

Love that Namecheap is making it easy to pay!

robomartin• 12 years ago

Right 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• 12 years ago

I 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.

Google Domains

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