Eight years after Google Domains launched, and a little bit greater than a yr after it graduated out of beta, Google is “winding down following a transition interval,” as a part of “efforts to sharpen our focus.” That is corporate-ese for “We have to preserve cost-cutting, so we’re promoting this enterprise we simply completed shaping as much as Squarespace.”
As we famous when it totally launched, Google Domains wasn’t the most affordable registrar you may discover, but it surely had an amazing interface, supplied greater than 300 totally different area endings (now together with, controversially, .mov and .zip), and its maintenance charges have been a flat $12 per yr, with out add-on expenses like WHOIS privateness or DNSSEC.
Google Domains tied into many different Google merchandise, together with Gmail, Workspace, Cloud, Adverts, and extra. However there wasn’t actually an engine for making an internet site, the factor you see while you go to the area. Domains supplied fast hook-ups to providers like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. Now the final of these is about to take the entire enterprise over, together with the roughly 10 million domains and the hundreds of thousands of shoppers behind them.
“Your domains are in good palms,” Squarespace says on its touchdown web page for Domains clients. Squarespace states that it’s going to make the most of “Google’s infrastructure” throughout the migration, and can honor renewal costs “for at the very least 12 months after closing the acquisition.” Google Workspace clients who get a site as a part of their bundle will land in Squarespace.
The businesses anticipate to shut the deal within the third quarter of 2023, topic to regulatory approval. There are extra particulars on what occurs subsequent for Domains clients on Google’s About web page. No job cuts or staffing modifications have been introduced as a part of the transfer.
Nevertheless clear and orderly a transition the 2 corporations attempt to emulate, the sale can’t assist however additional Google’s picture as an organization that readily provides up on initiatives that are not core to its promoting enterprise, even people who have matured and would appear to encourage a tie-in with Google accounts.
The transfer is available in the identical yr that Google’s cloud-gaming service, Stadia, shut down, catching some recreation builders utterly unaware. Simply yesterday, Google shut down its Grasshopper app, supposed to show starting code abilities. Google Domains clients are at the very least spared from being pressured to manually take their domains elsewhere—an onerous and typically nerve-wracking course of when you have many delicate domains—but when they do not love Squarespace’s area administration, they might find yourself doing so anyhow.
Itemizing picture by Google
