Zoom in / Those Memphis folks will soon have to look elsewhere to get their own domain, unless they’re okay with Squarespace.
Eight years after Google Domains launched, and just over a year after it exited beta, Google is “disappearing after a transition period” as part of “efforts to sharpen our focus.” This is a business that “we need to continue to keep costs down, so we’re selling this business that we just finished shaping up in Squarespace.”
As we noted when it fully launched, Google Domains wasn’t the cheapest registry site you could find, but it had a great interface, offered over 300 different domain endings (including, say, .mov and zip), and its maintainability was instant on. Fees are fixed at $12 per year, with no additional fees like WHOIS privacy or DNSSEC.
Google Domains links with many other Google products, including Gmail, Workspace, Cloud, Ads, and more. But there wasn’t really an engine to create a website, the thing you see when you visit a domain. Domains offered quick links to services like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace. Now the last of those is set to take over the entire business, along with the nearly 10 million domains and millions of customers behind them.
“Your domains are in good hands,” says Squarespace on its landing page for Domains customers. Squarespace states that it will use “Google infrastructure” during the migration, and will honor renewal prices “for at least 12 months after acquisition closes.” Google Workspace customers who get a domain as part of their package can access Squarespace.
The companies expect to close the transaction in the third quarter of 2023, subject to regulatory approval. There are more details about what happens next for Domains customers on Google’s About page. No job cuts or personnel changes have been announced as part of the move.
Whatever clean and orderly transition the two companies are trying to emulate, the sale can only help bolster Google’s image as a company that readily abandons projects that aren’t core to its advertising business, even those that have matured and seem to encourage association with Google accounts.
The move comes the same year that Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service shut down, leaving some game developers completely unaware. Just yesterday, Google shut down the Grasshopper app, which was initially intended to teach programming skills. Customers of Google Domains are at least spared from having to manually take their domains elsewhere – a nerve-wracking process at times if you have many sensitive domains – but if they don’t like managing Squarespace domains, they might end up doing it anyway .
Listing image from Google
