The End of an Era: Google Domains Discontinues Its Service

Google Domains is a domain registration and management service launched by Google in 2015. Users loved its well-designed interface and single single sign-on capabilities. It’s also been more affordable as compared to other domain registrars. Unfortunately, Google Domains is shutting down and selling its assets to the popular website builder Squarespace.

Announcement of Service Discontinuation

Since mid-2020, Google Domains has always been in the top 3 most used domain registrars globally. It entered beta in 2015 and exited in 2022. Google is known to be very meticulous when it comes to exiting beta. Gmail itself ran its beta for 5 years. Thus, when Google Domains finally exited beta, customers thought it would be a stable business that will stick around. After the General Availability, they gained 3 million more domains in just one year, now holding over 10 million registered domains.

However, to everyone’s surprise, on June 15, 2023, Squarespace announced its intent to purchase all domain registrations and customer accounts from Google Domains. The website builder is acquiring Google Domains for $180 million.

What happened? The only simple reason: Google is exiting the domain registration business. It’s been common for Google to shut down its products now and then, but since Google Domains has been a well-loved domain management service, the sudden shutdown came as a shock. According to Google, running a domain registration business no longer fits into the company’s long-term plans. While the explanation wasn’t as detailed, the domain name registration business is known ~~~~to be a very low-margin business, raking in very little revenue per registered domain name.

Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall even tweeted:

While Google Domains is indeed a valuable service, unfortunately, Google says their intent is to "sharpen our focus".

Impact on Existing Google Domains Users

The acquisition won’t be completed until the third quarter of 2023. Rates will be the same for the first 12 months of acquisition. Squarespace will be the exclusive domain name provider for Workspace customers for at least 3 years.

Google Domains will be working with Squarespace to make the entire transition as seamless as possible for customers. Throughout the transition, your domain will remain operational because Squarespace would still make use of the infrastructure behind the Google Domains product to keep the domain’s DNS records. Upon transition, Squarespace will be your new domain host and you’ll be managing your domain using a Squarespace account, billed via Squarespace, and governed by Squarespace Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. There will be no interruption to service throughout the transition.

If you’re thinking about moving to a different domain registration and management service, some great alternatives are Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare.

Steps for Migrating Domains

Here are the steps for transferring Google Domains to another service:

1. Log in to Google Domains.
2. Click the domain name that you want to transfer.
3. At the top left section, click Menu, then choose Registration settings.
4. Under "Domain lock," make sure that your domain is unlocked.
5. On the right side of "Transfer out," click Get auth code and sign in if needed.
6. Copy that authorization code.
7. Send the authorization code to your new domain registrar.
8. Click Done.

Make sure to update your DNS records to point to your new hosting before migrating your site’s content. To preserve your SEO ranking, use 301 redirects to tell the search engines that your old pages have been moved to a new hosting.

Conclusion

Squarespace is already a big player in the websites and domain space, so it’s not a surprise it was more than happy to acquire Google Domains. If you do stay with Squarespace, they’re offering incentives to encourage Google Domains customers to build their websites through Squarespace or adopt other Squarespace products. They still advertise fair pricing with no hidden fees, easy DNS management, and free WHOIS privacy. If you’re considering transferring to other domain registrars, do your research and look into their customer support, renewal pricing, and other potential issues to ensure a new long-term partnership and seamless transition.

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