Google Announces its Domain Registration Service

Google has become an umbrella brand that touches our lives more than anything else we use daily. Adding to its long list of utility offerings, Google will soon launch its own web domain registration service.

The company recently announced a beta service called Google Domains, which marks the beginning of its full-fledged domain registration business.

For now, the service is invite-only, but it looks like it will provide a bevy of features typically found on registrars such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and Hover. According to the company, the service will help users search, find, purchase and transfer domains – whether it’s .com, .biz, .org, or any other new domains that are released to the Web.

Google Domains will provide free private registrations, 10 million resolutions per year on Google’s DNS servers, branded email that forwards to an existing mail account and domain forwarding. Google says it will support a variety of different gTLDs (generic top level domains), including offerings such as .photography and .guru that are said to be rolling out over the next few months.
The move represents competition for GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar with over 57 million domains under its management. The registrar has privacy protection starting from US$7.99 per domain and email services from $4.99 a month.

Google’s plan for the service includes:

• $12 domain registrations
• No extra cost for private registrations
• Email aliases
• Customizable sub-domains
• Domain management tools

While the service will provide us with the ability to buy customized URLs, Google won’t provide the actual site hosting. Partners such as Wix, Weebly, Shopify, and Squarespace will provide hosting and website building services to registrants.

It seems like the right move for a company that makes the majority of its money through search. This would help them get more businesses online. Considering the fact that Google also provides tools for analytics and cloud storage, it seems like a domain registration service will fit right in.