Google Domains: Useful for some small business owners, but useless in many cases

As an active owner of a considerable number of domain names, I was excited to learn that both Google and Amazon were entering the domain-name registrar business. I’ve long wanted a domain name registration service that was simple, nicely-priced, and not subject to spammy upsells. So I naturally gave Google Domains a try when they removed the invitation-only requirement this week and opened it up to all U.S. customers. As it turns out, the service is simple and fairly-priced, as promised, but it is subject to some of the same registry limitations that I’ve written about before.

Buying a domain

The process of buying a domain with Google Domains was simple. I was able to buy geeky.domains in a few easy steps.

Once the domain is added to your cart, you need to enter contact info for the WHOIS database. Upon registration, you cannot enter separate registrant, admin and tech contacts, though you can go back and edit these once the domain name is in your account. You can also choose free private registration, which is refreshing, since most registrars try to get you on an upsell to make your contact information anonymous in WHOIS.

Payment was painless using Google Wallet. Domain pricing was good, but not the absolute lowest on the market. For geeky.domains, it was $30 through Google, $39.99 at GoDaddy plus an additional $7.99 if you want WHOIS privacy, $24.88 with 1-year of free privacy at Namecheap and $34.99 at Name.com plus $3.99 for WHOIS privacy.

Once you’ve paid, you can quickly build a website with one of their partners like Squarespace, Wix, Blogger, Weebly or Shopify. Obviously there are costs to all of these except Blogger.

Google Domains also offers free email forwarding for up to 100 email aliases. However, if you are going to host your email, you’ll need to setup the email DNS records for your email provider. In an obvious omission, you can’t setup a Google Apps account when buying a domain name. You’ll have to setup the account in Google Apps and then return to the domain name system to add the required DNS records.

The DNS records editor seemed robust, allowing you to easily register A records, CNAME, TXT records, etc. You also get to host your DNS on Google’s DNS infrastructure, which in theory should be solid. My favorite part of the service was that when you buy a new domain, it leaves your DNS settings blank, rather than pre-populating host records with spammy parking pages.

Transferring domains is hit or miss

To try out the service, I attempted to transfer a number of domains that I own that are up for renewal and ran into all sorts of limitations imposed by the registries, particularly on many of the new gTLD domain extensions.

domainsblogpostimageGoogle Domains does sell .tips domains, so I tried to transfer a domain that I own called house.tips. I got a lovely error message that said “We don’t support transfer of this domain because it is a registry premium domain.” What the heck does that mean?

After going back to Name.com and looking at my account, the renewal price on that domain is $41.25, which is twice as expensive as other .tips domains. Of course neither of these sites describe this anywhere, but the wonderful error message I got essentially means that house.tips is a more costly “premium” name because it is short and uses a common word, so apparently I must renew this at premium prices at my existing registrar.

Strangely, I’m able to transfer another .tips domain that I own to Google Domains. So essentially these domain registries are playing games with super-secret lists of premium domain names that lock you in to certain registrars at inflated prices. For all the benefits that more gTLD domains could bring, these sort of anti-competitive domain restrictions do no one any good.

Like other registrars, Google Domains doesn’t support every extension. If you fancy a .sexy or .cool domain, for example, you’re out of luck. And like other registrars, you get the stupid message that says “extension not supported” with zero guidance on where you might actually be able to purchase that domain. I protect our company’s brand on a variety of domain extensions. While I could transfer over .org, .net and .us, I could not trasnfer over .tv, .in or .mobi.

Decent support

In transferring one of my domains, I ran into a snag where the authorization code given to me by GoDaddy was in a format that Google Domains didn’t like. I wasn’t able to continue the registration, so I clicked on the support link. A couple minutes later I received a call from a very helpful Google support engineer who quickly solved the issue. Given how many other Google services hide behind un-monitored community support forums, it was nice to get real, live customer support from them on the phone.

No bulk features

If you own a bunch of domain names and are hoping for a cheap place to house them all, Google Domains isn’t the place for you. The UI is simple for dealing with a single domain name, but lacks any sort of bulk capabilities. It is clear that Google had small business owners in mind for this service, not domainers or companies with lots of domains to manage.

Comparison to Amazon Route 53 Domain Registration

sponsor-aws-300x111When Google announced their domain registration service last summer, Amazon made a similar announcement where they are offering domain registrations through their Route 53 DNS service in Amazon Web Services. The two services are quite similar in price, but are clearly are meant for two wildly different customers.

To buy a domain through Amazon, you have to setup an Amazon AWS account. The process is tuned for IT pros and developers who are already using Amazon AWS and want to host their DNS in Route 53. There is nothing consumer-friendly about Amazon’s process if you’re not familiar with AWS. In contrast, Google’s domain registration is very simple and clearly targeted at the small business owner who “just wants to get on the web.”

Even more interestingly, neither Google nor Amazon is actually in the business of domain registration. Despite the fact that you may register a domain name with Google or Amazon AWS, they are not actually the provider of domain name services. They are simply resellers of other domain registrars. In the case of Google, they use the German registrar Key Systems and provide WHOIS privacy service via Whoisproxy in New Zealand. In Amazon’s case, when you register a domain through AWS, the registrar is actually Gandi.

Recommendation

If you are a small business and Google Domains supports the domain name extension you are looking for, the service seems very simple. It is nicely-priced and doesn’t nag you with spammy upsells. Free WHOIS privacy protection is a nice bonus.

If you have even moderately more complex domain requirements or are trying to consolidate your domain accounts, this isn’t a service for you. It is too simple and suffers from a number of limitations.

Taking a look at this service also reminded me of how much of a mess the domain registries have created with their hundreds of new gTLD extensions. I don’t know who at ICANN thought all of this was a good idea, but we’re now in a world where if you own multiple domain extensions, you’re likely forced to use multiple registrars to manage and renew them. You are also beholden to anti-competitive pricing and registrar lock-ins if you want to own any domains that are mysteriously deemed “premium.”

[TW]

Google Domains：對一些小企業主有用，但在很多情況下沒用

作為大量域名的活躍所有者，我很高興得知谷歌和亞馬遜都在進入域名註冊商業務。我一直想要一個簡單、價格合理且不受垃圾郵件加售影響的域名註冊服務。因此，當 Google Domains 本週取消了僅限邀請的要求並向所有美國客戶開放時，我很自然地嘗試了一下。事實證明，正如所承諾的那樣，該服務簡單且價格合理，但它受制於我之前寫過的一些相同的註冊表限制。

購買域名

使用 Google Domains 購買域名的過程很簡單。我可以通過幾個簡單的步驟購買 geeky.domains。

將域添加到您的購物車後，您需要輸入 WHOIS 數據庫的聯繫信息。註冊時，您不能輸入單獨的註冊人、管理員和技術聯繫人，但一旦域名進入您的帳戶，您就可以返回並編輯這些聯繫人。您還可以選擇免費私人註冊，這令人耳目一新，因為大多數註冊商都試圖讓您進行追加銷售，以使您在 WHOIS 中的聯繫信息匿名。

使用 Google 電子錢包付款無痛。域名定價不錯，但不是市場上絕對最低的。對於 geeky.domains，Google 為 30 美元，GoDaddy 為 39.99 美元，如果您想要 WHOIS 隱私，則需要額外支付 7.99 美元，Namecheap 為 24.88 美元，1 年免費隱私，Name.com 為 34.99 美元，WHOIS 隱私為 3.99 美元。

付款後，您可以與他們的合作夥伴之一（如 Squarespace、Wix、Blogger、Weebly 或 Shopify）快速建立一個網站。顯然，除了 Blogger 之外，所有這些都是有成本的。

Google Domains 還提供最多 100 個電子郵件別名的免費電子郵件轉發。但是，如果您要託管電子郵件，則需要為您的電子郵件提供商設置電子郵件 DNS 記錄。一個明顯的遺漏是，您在購買域名時無法設置 Google Apps 帳戶。您必須在 Google Apps 中設置帳戶，然後返回域名系統以添加所需的 DNS 記錄。

DNS 記錄編輯器看起來很強大，可以讓您輕鬆註冊 A 記錄、CNAME、TXT 記錄等。您還可以在 Google 的 DNS 基礎設施上託管您的 DNS，這在理論上應該是可靠的。該服務中我最喜歡的部分是，當您購買新域時，它會將您的 DNS 設置留空，而不是使用頁面預先填充主機記錄。

轉移域名是命中還是未命中

為了試用該服務，我嘗試轉移我擁有的一些需要續訂的域，但遇到了註冊管理機構施加的各種限制，特別是在許多新 gTLD 域擴展上。

Google Domains 確實出售 .tips 域，因此我嘗試轉移我擁有的名為 house.tips 的域。我收到一條可愛的錯誤消息，上面寫著“我們不支持此域的轉移，因為它是註冊高級域。”這是什麼意思？

回到 Name.com 並查看我的帳戶後，該域的續訂價格為 41.25 美元，是其他 .tips 域的兩倍。當然，這兩個網站都沒有在任何地方描述這一點，但我得到的美妙錯誤消息基本上意味著 house.tips 是一個更昂貴的“高級”名稱，因為它很短並且使用了一個常用詞，所以顯然我必須以高價更新它在我現有的註冊商處。

奇怪的是，我能夠將我擁有的另一個 .tips 域轉移到 Google Domains。因此，本質上，這些域名註冊管理機構正在玩高級域名的超級秘密列表，以高昂的價格將您鎖定在某些註冊商處。儘管更多 gTLD 域可以帶來所有好處，但這些反競爭的域限制對任何人都沒有任何好處。

與其他註冊商一樣，Google Domains 並不支持所有擴展程序。例如，如果您喜歡 .sexy 或 .cool 域名，那您就不走運了。與其他註冊商一樣，您會收到“不支持擴展”的愚蠢信息，而您實際上可以在哪裡購買該域的指導為零。我在各種域名後綴上保護我們公司的品牌。雖然我可以通過 .org、.net 和 .us 傳輸，但我無法通過 .tv、.in 或 .mobi 傳輸。

體面的支持

在轉移我的一個域時，我遇到了一個障礙，其中 GoDaddy 給我的授權代碼採用了 Google Domains 不喜歡的格式。我無法繼續註冊，所以我點擊了支持鏈接。幾分鐘後，我接到了一位非常樂於助人的 Google 支持工程師的電話，他很快解決了這個問題。考慮到許多其他 Google 服務隱藏在不受監控的社區支持論壇之後，很高興通過電話從他們那裡獲得真實、實時的客戶支持。

沒有批量功能

如果您擁有大量域名並希望有一個便宜的地方來存放它們，那麼 Google Domains 不適合您。 UI 處理單個域名很簡單，但缺乏任何類型的批量功能。很明顯，谷歌為這項服務考慮的是小企業主，而不是域主或需要管理大量域的公司。

與 Amazon Route 53 域註冊的比較

贊助商去年夏天谷歌宣布他們的域註冊服務時，亞馬遜也發布了類似的聲明，他們通過亞馬遜網絡服務中的Route 53 DNS服務提供域註冊。這兩種服務的價格非常相似，但顯然是針對兩個截然不同的客戶。

要通過 Amazon 購買域，您必須設置一個 Amazon AWS 帳戶。該流程針對已經在使用 Amazon AWS 並希望在 Route 53 中託管其 DNS 的 IT 專業人員和開發人員進行了調整。如果您不熟悉 AWS，Amazon 的流程就沒有任何對消費者友好的內容。相比之下，谷歌的域名註冊非常簡單，明確針對“只想上網”的小企業主。

更有趣的是，谷歌和亞馬遜實際上都沒有從事域名註冊業務。儘管您可以向 Google 或 Amazon AWS 註冊域名，但它們實際上並不是域名服務的提供者。他們只是其他域名註冊商的經銷商。以穀歌為例，他們使用德國註冊商密鑰系統，並通過新西蘭的 Whoisproxy 提供 WHOIS 隱私服務。以亞馬遜為例，當您通過 AWS 註冊域時，註冊商實際上是 Gandi。