Google Gets Into Domain Sales

So, you want to buy a domain name. Who do you go to first? GoDaddy? NameCheap? Whoever happens to have a sale going on right now?

How about Google?

For the past few years, anyone looking to Google to buy a domain has been met with this support page, which proclaims that “Google itself doesn’t register or host domain names,” before recommending up a few partners who do.

That changes today.

Google has just launched a small private beta for a domain registration service that it’s aptly dubbed “Google Domains.” You can find the largely locked down landing page for the service here.

And talk about timing: On June 9, GoDaddy finally filed for the IPO that it’s been mulling since at least 2006. Two weeks later, Google publicly announces plans to get into the domain registration market. Up until now, GoDaddy was even one of the partners that Google recommended. That can’t feel great.

While it seems Google is still working out exactly what it’ll bring to the table, here’s some of the stuff it’s disclosed so far:

Free private registration, allowing you to mask your name/address/etc. from Whois searches without having to pay a third-party service

Free email forwarding from whatever@yourcompany.com to your personal Gmail inbox

Free domain forwarding

Support for up to 100 sub-domains

Plans to support all of the crazy new domain endings that will roll out over the next few years (like .guru and .club)

The move makes enough sense that it’s actually kind if surprising that it’s taken Google this long. While domains aren’t generally considered a massive-margin business, they’ve always seemed like a glaring omission in Googles offerings; a missing puzzle piece, almost. Need email for your domain? Google does that. Need analytics for your domain? They do that, too. Want to buy the domain itself through Google? NOPE.

Also fun to note: Google is promising full phone support for Google Domain customers, making it one of very, very few Google products with a support number tied to it. The only other one I’m aware of is Google Glass (update: and, as someone else just mentioned to me, Google’s Enterprise services). You know how many people are going to try to call that number for help logging into Gmail? Because it’s a lot.

The catch: as mentioned, this is a tiny private beta for now. Want to try to get in? Go to Google Domains, click the “Manage my domains” button, log in, then hit the “Request an invite” button. Google isn’t making any promises on how many people they’ll let in, but it’ll at least get your foot in the door.

[TW]

谷歌涉足域名銷售

所以，你想買一個域名。你先去找誰？GoDaddy？NameCheap？誰碰巧現在正在進行銷售？

谷歌呢？

在過去的幾年裡，任何希望通過谷歌購買域名的人都會看到這個支持頁面，它宣稱“谷歌本身不註冊或託管域名”，然後推薦了一些這樣做的合作夥伴。

這在今天發生了變化。

谷歌剛剛為域名註冊服務推出了一個小型私人測試版，它被恰當地稱為“谷歌域名”。您可以在此處找到該服務的主要鎖定登錄頁面。

說說時機：6 月 9 日，GoDaddy 終於申請了至少自 2006 年以來一直在考慮的 IPO。兩週後，谷歌公開宣布了進入域名註冊市場的計劃。到目前為止，GoDaddy 甚至是 Google 推薦的合作夥伴之一。那感覺不太好。

雖然看起來谷歌仍在研究它會帶來什麼，但這是迄今為止它披露的一些內容：

免費私人註冊，允許您屏蔽您的姓名/地址/等。從 Whois 搜索中無需支付第三方服務費用

從whatever@yourcompany.com 到您的個人 Gmail 收件箱的免費電子郵件轉發

免費域名轉發

最多支持 100 個子域

計劃支持將在未來幾年推出的所有瘋狂的新域名後綴（如 .guru 和 .club）

此舉有足夠的意義，即使令人驚訝的是谷歌花了這麼長時間，它實際上是善良的。雖然域名通常不被認為是一項利潤豐厚的業務，但在 Google 的產品中，它們似乎總是一個明顯的遺漏；幾乎是一塊缺失的拼圖。您的域需要電子郵件嗎？谷歌就是這樣做的。需要對您的域進行分析？他們也這樣做。想通過 Google 本身購買域名？不。

還有一點很有趣：谷歌承諾為谷歌域客戶提供全面的電話支持，使其成為極少數擁有支持號碼的谷歌產品之一。我唯一知道的另一個是谷歌眼鏡（更新：正如其他人剛剛向我提到的，谷歌的企業服務）。您知道有多少人會嘗試撥打該號碼以獲取登錄 Gmail 的幫助嗎？因為很多。

問題：如前所述，目前這是一個很小的私人測試版。想嘗試進入？轉到 Google Domains，點擊“管理我的域名”按鈕，登錄，然後點擊“請求邀請”按鈕。谷歌沒有對他們會允許多少人做出任何承諾，但它至少會讓你踏入大門。