Eight years after Google Domains launched, and slightly greater than a 12 months 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 maintain cost-cutting, so we’re promoting this enterprise we simply completed shaping as much as Squarespace.”
As we noted when it fully launched, Google Domains wasn’t the most cost effective registrar you can discover, but it surely had an ideal interface, provided greater than 300 completely different area endings (now including, controversially, .mov and .zip), and its maintenance charges had been a flat $12 per 12 months, with out add-on fees 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 once you go to the area. Domains provided fast hook-ups to providers like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. Now the final of these is ready to take the entire enterprise over, together with the roughly 10 million domains and the thousands and thousands of shoppers behind them.
“Your domains are in good fingers,” Squarespace says on its landing page for Domains customers. Squarespace states that it’ll make the most of “Google’s infrastructure” through the migration, and can honor renewal costs “for at the least 12 months after closing the acquisition.” Google Workspace prospects who get a website as a part of their package deal 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 prospects on Google’s About page. No job cuts or staffing modifications had been introduced as a part of the transfer.
Nevertheless clear and orderly a transition the 2 firms attempt to emulate, the sale can’t assist however additional Google’s picture as an organization that readily provides up on tasks 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 12 months that Google’s cloud-gaming service, Stadia, shut down, catching some game developers completely unaware. Simply yesterday, Google shut down its Grasshopper app, supposed to show starting code expertise. Google Domains prospects are at the least spared from being compelled to manually take their domains elsewhere—an onerous and generally nerve-wracking course of when you’ve got many delicate domains—but when they do not love Squarespace’s area administration, they could find yourself doing so anyhow.
Itemizing picture by Google
