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Google Eyes Domain Registration Market

Posted by timothy on Mon Jan 31, 2005 06:20 PM
from the they-know-what-domains-you've-searched-for dept.
Businesses Google The Internet
1sockchuck writes "Google is now an ICANN-approved domain name registrar, an intriguing move that could be tied to its blog hosting service, Blogger. Yahoo recently dropped its domain prices to $4.98, as hosting companies use domains as a cheap way to lure customers. Registrar status could allow Google to compete aggressively on price. Bloggers seem to resist paying for hosting, so cheap domains might help Google's plans for world domination."
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  • The possibilities... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by trekstar25 (727712) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:23PM (#11534394) Homepage
    They could easily pair this with a free hosting solution, something like Geocities, perhaps - a gig of free website development space, as long as you put the AdWords on it.

  • The question is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by froggero1 (848930) <canadakicksass@gmai l . c om> on Monday January 31 2005, @06:23PM (#11534399) Homepage
    can I host my website out of gmail?

    • No, but Google won't stop you (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nomihn0 (739701) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:30PM (#11534480)
      Google has a very kind policy when it comes to third-party GMail hacks: They don't care. That is, they don't care at all. Google is permitted to change its structure and/or features at any time without telling a soul, rendering your application/extension obsolete. Google hasn't got the time to go after people using GMail as a personal server, nor do the staff have time to allow them and accept responsibility for their functioning. It's a fair system, in my mind.

        • Re:But, (Score:4, Insightful)

          by easyfrag (210329) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:19PM (#11535054)
          The only thing is that they'd have to be responsible for that data.


          Nah, they'd just stick the word beta in the logo and thats your warning.

    • Re:The question is... (Score:5, Funny)

      by mgoss (790921) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:41PM (#11534617)

      can I host my website out of gmail?

      No, but you can out of emacs.. ;)

    • Re:The question is... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by digismack (262459) <digismack@gmail.com> on Monday January 31 2005, @06:46PM (#11534664) Homepage
      Seems as though they could easily implement @yourdomain.com email addresses using the Gmail interface.

      That would be slick.
  • Email, books, images, video, domain name registration and more...When will they run everything ont he internet?

    • Re:Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nizo (81281) *
      Yep, it looks like they have it all covered [google.com].

    • Re:Monopoly (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 31 2005, @06:31PM (#11534496)
      From Google-Rumor-Of-The-Day.com: "Breaking News: Google registers domain GSearch.com! In an apparent move to take over search engine giant Altavista, Google has registered the domain GSearch.com. Is Google about to move into the search engine market? Only time will tell."

      Oh wait a second...

    • Rent (Score:5, Funny)

      by ari_j (90255) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:40PM (#11534599)
      Just wait until they land on the dark blue spaces, baby. I built 11 hotels on Boardwalk and 8 of them on Park Place. One of these times around the board, they're gonna desperately need that $200 from passing Go, because rent on my dark blue properties is $11 billion a hit.

  • So (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nizo (81281) * on Monday January 31 2005, @06:23PM (#11534402) Homepage Journal
    Will domains registered through them rank higher in search results?

    • Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FrYGuY101 (770432) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:26PM (#11534428) Journal
      Probably not.

      Google is an advertising company. If their results are skewed, people might start using a competitor, and they lose out on ad revenues.

      • Re:So (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fm6 (162816)

        Google is an advertising company. If their results are skewed, people might start using a competitor, and they lose out on ad revenues.

        You're assuming they will act logically and with foresight. With Google, that's probably a safe assumption, but it hasn't been for other search engines. Infoseek, for example, got taken over by Disney, which turned it into a the "portal" go.com, and tried to con people into going to Disney-owned sites. To be fair, they did this with web page gimmicks, not by bogus search

  • World domination (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cambrant (735036) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:24PM (#11534411) Homepage
    It seems that Google is now competing for Microsofts held place as world ruler. They are literally getting into every buisness available. So far so good, but what's next? Google-approved real-estate? Google water supply?
  • This is a much more attractive alternative to Verisign [verisign.com], even over fun names like GoDaddy [godaddy.com], and NameBargain [namebargain.com].

    Having done ISP work back in the day, I have personally submitted registrations on thousands of domains with the venerable Network Solutions. With Verisign and the recent mix, I have lost tons of my own personal domains I have collected over the years -- and registration on these things is quite expensive! Finally there are alternatives, and I think I would trust Google over Microsoft, Verisign, or the US Government. This is my Internet, and I don't want it fucked-up!

    Also, I think that Google doing root nameserver fun would be more like a DNS cache for them.

    • Re:Much better alternative to Verisign (Score:5, Interesting)

      by viva_fourier (232973) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:03PM (#11534848) Journal
      Yes, but you have to ask how this fits into their quest to organize the world's information? I naively assume they don't intend to fubar 'your Internet', but this looks a lot like the whole gmail "we store your email forever" sort of deal.

      It seems this registration-scheme would enable them to organize new blogs/sites using their existing network-search framework. And, I can see blogs really taking off in the immediate future. If any of you have used Picasa + Hello + Blogger, you'll know what I mean. Scary Easy.

      Now, you get all sorts of random people posting their thoughts/musings/interests all over -- all being syphoned through Google's keyword-storing architecture. Sergey and Larry are no dummies: they've done their research in data mining. Why stop at data mining the existing information source, when you can create a new one?

      Time to go buy some tinfoil futures...

  • Lure? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ATAMAH (578546) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:29PM (#11534466)
    Is it only me, or does this particular word usage implies something not quite honest? I don't see anything wrong with having a loss leader - a product you may sell at prices below cost in order to gain customers which then can be upsold with other services - hosting and etc.

    • WRONG with that? I love that marketing strategy, because I know about it!

      Company X offers loss leader/free bait. Take loss leader/free bait. Ignore upsell treatment because company Y offers what's being upsold as loss leader/free bait in an attempt to sell you what you're getting cheap/free from company X.

      Rinse, repeat. You'll wind up paying very little or nothing for both sides of the equation.

      I think a lot of people confuse loss-leader marketing (legal and perfectly ethical) with bait-and-switch mar

  • Thank you ICANN !! (Score:3, Funny)

    by GamesNET (786409) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:33PM (#11534519)
    Great ! Now our domains can get hijacked at newer, bigger registrars! Thank you ICANN !

  • how about certificates? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ch-chuck (9622) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:41PM (#11534601) Homepage
    I.e., affordable certificates, give verisign more competition - call 'em gcerts or something.

  • Can't wait for the new TLD (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScentCone (795499) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:45PM (#11534650)
    I mean, .GOO has so many possibilities in pr0n alone. And nanotech.

  • yahoo DOES NOT offer $4.98 per domain (Score:5, Informative)

    by xoba (725894) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:51PM (#11534718) Homepage
    yahoo DOES NOT offer $4.98 per domain --- terms are strictly limited to ONE domain per NEW customer; after that, their $9.95 per domain per year applies:

    "Domains price Offer is open to new customers that purchase Domains. Limit one offer per customer, and one use per customer on a single account. Offer expires February 08, 2005 at 11:59 PM PST. Offers may not be combined with any other offers or discounts, separated, redeemed for cash, or transferred. Other terms and conditions apply; see the Yahoo! Small Business Terms of Service when you sign up."

  • Google is tired of everyone learning what they are up to via domain name registerations.

    Now, they will be able to register domain names for secret projects, and keep the domain names secret :)

  • Google OS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by serutan (259622) <doug@NOSPaM.geekazon.com> on Monday January 31 2005, @06:53PM (#11534751) Homepage
    I've said it before and I'll say it again here. When Google creates its own Linux distro incorporating Google features into the desktop, that's when Microsoft can put up the sign, "Last one out turn off the lights."

    • The Internet is the OS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Infonaut (96956) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Monday January 31 2005, @07:22PM (#11535079) Homepage Journal
      When Google creates its own Linux distro incorporating Google features into the desktop, that's when Microsoft can put up the sign, "Last one out turn off the lights."

      I think of it a bit differently. It's not really about the desktop at all. Microsoft was born in the era when the desktop operating system ruled. But Google was born in the Internet Era, and it shows in their strategy. Their goal seems to be to develop a wide array of applications that live on the Internet, thereby obviating the need for a desktop monopoly. If everything is on the Net, who really cares what OS you're using?

      Microsoft comes at it from the opposite direction, attempting to extend their desktop operating system to the Internet. But the Achilles Heel of this strategy is backward compatibility. Microsoft has to support its legacy operating systems, and no matter what they do to attempt to take over the Internet, they can't adequately leverage their desktop OS monopoly because they have to first convince people that it's worth the money to upgrade to gain the benefits of the Microsoft Internet.

      Google is constantly improving their applications and they don't have to worry about legacy operating system issues. They can simply piggyback off of Internet standards and when they do push into the OS, they're leveraging Microsoft's immense investment in Windows. It doesn't really matter whether Linux, Windows, or the Mac is dominant, as far as Google is concerned. As long as no one is able to box them out by controlling access to the Web, Google is limited only by their ability to deliver great web apps.

  • Y'know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by CanSpice (300894) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:58PM (#11534804) Homepage
    I'm really enjoying being able to use the Googlenet.

  • Could be good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by digitalgimpus (468277) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:03PM (#11534849) Homepage
    Google tends to have a good eye for simple interfaces for managing things:

    - Search
    - Gmail
    - Blogger
    - Picasa
    - Google Desktop

    If google carries that tradition forward, I could see myself transfering my domains to them rather them, since they tend to be:

    1. Competitive pricing seems crucial at google. Everything is free or low cost.

    2. Quality

    3. Good support. Google does respond. I had an issue with Google Desktop, and Gmail... both times I got a quick response. Amazingly. I was shocked.

    I can't say the above for any of the major registrar's on the market.

    So if Google expands beyond bloggers and allows domain (especially bulk) registration/transfer.... I'm in.

  • Blogging? How about gmail on your own domain? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by damieng (230610) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:04PM (#11534865) Homepage Journal
    Everybody's speculating on how this could let Google charge a fee for Bloggers to have their own domain name. Bloggers already have an FTP to your own server option so this doesn't add much.

    Surely much more interesting is the concept of Gmail with your own domain name.

    With an administration tool allowing Joe User to setup family and friend create email accounts under your their domain name with Google taking care of all the scanning/filtering/storage.

    Such an option would give them something different to Hotmail and YahooMail to the point of being something worth paying for. Sure some ISP's already offer this but none of the web interfaces I've seen touch GMail.

    That might even explain why it's still in beta...

  • You get what you pay for (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ErichTheWebGuy (745925) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:07PM (#11534905) Homepage
    I bought a domain from someone once who originally bought the name from Yahoo domains. When I tried to get it transferred, I ran into a whole host of problems. The official reply from Yahoo when I tried to contact their technical support staff:

    "Dear valued Yahoo customer,
    We are sorry, but Yahoo is unable to offer technical support for Yahoo domains."

    So I tried calling Melbourne IT (Yahoo resells Melbourne registrations), who of course told me to call Yahoo.

    I wouldn't worry much about Yahoo having competition, tehy seem to be doing a very good job of shooting themselves in the foot anyway.

  • .blog (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Duncan3 (10537) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:21PM (#11535074) Homepage
    We need to force all blogs onto the .blog domain - then we can just filter out all of them at the DNS.

    Billions of pictures of peoples cats would no longer terrify the world, woohoo!

  • domain registrar + dark-fibre = ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cosmic_0x526179 (209008) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:47PM (#11535314)
    ... perhaps a new entry in the hosting market. After all, they do have a deep understanding of distributing content around the world. It also makes it somewhat easier for them to crawl the content of said servers.

  • when looking for companies these days (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pivot (4465) on Monday January 31 2005, @07:54PM (#11535367)
    I often find myself writing the company name in the google search field than trying to find a randomly similar url. I think having specific domain names is loosing its importance these days because the namespace is so highly utilized.
    • How else do you think this thing innovation happens, solid business plans? Perhaps in market share, and dollars. What about having a good service that is preferable to whatever else is there? I think that taking wild stabs sometimes does pay off, though I bet they are more general pokings than flailing stabbings. Of course -- we'll see, won't we?

    • Re:Does (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Smidge204 (605297) on Monday January 31 2005, @06:49PM (#11534700)
      Last I checked, they aren't becoming a portal. Google search is still Google search.

      However, Google as a company is branching out into related (and sometimes not so related) services. Now that they are publically owned they need to actually make real profits instead of just staying afloat. Becoming a domain registrar seems like a very good way to make money directly instead of relying on advertizing, and at the same time bring in more people to increase the value of their ads and profit that way.

      As for Google Groups "sucking", that's an opinion. I can't really agree or disagree since I don't use it though...

      I don't think anyone really has a problem with a company doing what it can to make a profit, providing that they aren't stabbing others in the back, hoarding patents or copyrights, subverting other industries with bogus standards, using asinine legal threats or trying to push through oppressive laws to do it. (ala RIAA/MPAA/MS/SCO etc)
      =Smidge=

    • Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by l810c (551591) * on Monday January 31 2005, @07:17PM (#11535011)
      I think domains are cheap enough. It's already hard to get something similar to what you need.

      Imagine if they get down close to free? There will not be anything sensable left.

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