Google Domains Halts Registrations as It Waits for the Google Grim Reaper

Google Domains has registered its last domain. From a report: Google announced in July that the service was getting shut down and that it had struck a deal with Squarespace to sell off the existing customer base. Part of that transition process means winding down the existing Google Domains functionality. 9to5Google was the first site to notice that you can no longer buy a domain through the service while it waits for the Google Grim Reaper to arrive. Google Domain's homepage has a notice explaining that this all apparently went down a few days ago, saying, "On September 7, 2023 Squarespace acquired all domain registrations and related customer accounts from Google Domains. Customers and domains will be transitioned over the next few months." You can still manage existing domains on Google Domains, but that's it.

Everything Google starts they eventually kill

[jerryjnormandin]

I learned my lesson.. Remember the Google the Google Nexus Q ?? I had that.. I used it to stream my audo collection. Remember Chromecast Audio ??? They killed that too. For the longest time I had a free domain account with apps. They killed that too. Pretty soon I bet they will kill google.com mail accounts. Maybe not because I bet they gleen information from the keywords in the email. Maybe we should start a pool, what is Google going to kill next ? Google Mail? , Google Maps?, sell he Google Search engine to IBM ? All I know now is don' but any Google Pixel Products, look for a new service to replace Google Photos and Google Drive because who knows when those services are going to get the axe.

Re:

[thegarbz]

I learned my lesson..

I learnt my lesson too. Every time Google kills something they offer you an alternative, way of getting your data out or migrating, or in some cases even refunds making Google products incredibly low risk compared to everything else. This is another fine example of it. No customers are losing their domain registrations.

Re:Everything Google starts they eventually kill

[sjames]

OTOH, you'd have to have a hole in your head to make any sort of workflow that depends on anything google provides. Sure, they will refund your money and allow you to download your data (as they should), but they won't fix your now broken workflow or help you deal with the associated disruption.

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[thegarbz]

OTOH, you'd have to have a hole in your head to make any sort of workflow that depends on anything google provides.

That is definitely true. There's a big difference between using Google and depending on Google.

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[timeOday]

I really rely on Google Earth Pro Desktop and I am just holding my breath hoping nobody at google gets around to killing it and Microsoft doesn't change windows in some way that would require a serious update to it.

It truly seems like a vestige of a former google that no longer exists. When they would develop (or in this case, acquire) and freely distribute something just because it was so useful to everybody.

Re:

[CaptQuark]

I don't think they will kill Google Earth Pro Desktop anytime soon. Google restricts using Google Earth information from the free website version for commercial purposes. Google Earth Pro allows companies to purchase a license that allows them to offer commercial services (live maps, screen shots, etc).

Google might transition the Google Earth Pro to a paid product only, but I don't think they will kill the software (and licensing) completely.

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[vbdasc]

Maybe we should start a pool, what is Google going to kill next ? Google Mail? , Google Maps?

Maybe Google Groups? (plus the USENET archive) . It's a zombie now, and has been for the last decade or so, and I have no idea why Google hasn't euthanized it yet.

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[hipp5]

They're dropping support for Zoom and Google Meet on the Nest Hub Max, which was one of its key selling features. So it seems like Google smart displays are not long for the world either.

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[alcmena]

I remember the Google Nexus Q as well. Had one myself. I remember they ended up refunding everyone and sending pre-orders one free anyway because they killed it so quickly. So the fact that you were able to use it at all was a kindness from Google.

Alternatives?

[CAIMLAS]

I'm pretty steamed at this, and it only motivates me to further get rid of any trace of Google in my IT repertoire.

Google Domains was the only option for a simple registrar with limited/basic DNS options, no hasstle/spam/upsell registration, and the ability to have multiple account managers per domain - at a reasonable cost.

I haven't found anything even close to that yet, not even 2 of those 5 criteria.

Does anyone have any recommendations along those lines?

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

cloudflare

Re:

[gotamd]

I'll second this recommendation, but Cloudflare is not as simple and straightforward as Google Domains, and they do try to up/cross-sell you a little bit.

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[nmb3000]

Cloudflare [cloudflare.com] actually looks pretty good, and cheaper than Google Domains was to boot. Thanks for the tip.

Re:

[slazzy]

Porkbun seem to have the best prices, limited bullshit.

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[DarkOx]

ZoneEdit is still out there

Re:Alternatives?

[Shakrai]

You fucking should be steamed at this. It was a great product that Just Worked. It had out of the box cross platform support for DynDns. It had seamless IPv6 support. It had one click DNSSEC configuration. The list of reasons why it was awesome is fucking endless. It was equally good for home users and large enterprises. I completed moving the last of our very long list of domains into it six fucking weeks before they announced its demise .

I haven't been this pissed at them since they killed Reader. Reader at least had a somewhat plausible business excuse, it didn't make money, Domains was profitable! It just wasn't as profitable as their MBA next quarter above all else scumbag CEO wanted it to be. You know, the same guy that says you can't even have a fucking stapler if you work for Google, just go borrow one from the receptionist, I need my stock options pov. "Don't be evil" indeed. Good job turning the company over to him Sergey and Larry.

My Director, the world's biggest fucking cheerleader for Google, the dude I had to talk just last year out of forcing our Finance team into Workspace (you know many accounting/finance types that will part with Excel?) is now so throughly disillusioned with them he wants to move away. We halted our plans to migrate e-mail from 365 into Workspace. I highly doubt G-mail would be on the chopping block, but let's be real, if they sunset it tomorrow, would anyone actually be surprised??? Domains one-click integrated into Workspace and they just kicked it to the curb like yesterday's trash.

Fuck you Google. I hope Uncle Sam breaks you into ten million different pieces. You're worse than Microsoft and that's saying something.

Re: Alternatives?

[jasonw61]

Psssst.

https://domains.squarespace.co... [squarespace.com]

Basic level of support

[NFN_NLN]

How hard is it to maintain a registrar? One would think a cloud provider would also function as a domain registry just to act as a one-stop-shop.

Re:

[i.r.id10t]

Sure.... Wanna sign up with GoDaddy?

Re:

[Shakrai]

GoDaddy is low-key ass compared to Google Domains on UI and features.

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[timeOday]

Oh geeze, I'm with GoDaddy for my personal domain and I was pretty surprised by the price for my latest renewal, considering they don't actually do anything, not even included DNS for my small-volume domain.

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[Macfox]

What's clear is Google have no further plans in this space. Google obviously doesn't think there's value in a one stop shop.

Google was an accredited ICANN registrar some 10 years before launching Google Domains in 2015, and this acquisition includes the IANA accreditation, not just the service and customers. If you look on the IANA list, Google's registration (895) is now Squarespace, albeit with Google's RDAP base URL.

I don't think squarespace is ready for prime time

[lusid1]

As far as I can tell they are missing features like dynamicdns, so when my domains are forced over some things will just stop working.

Re:

[Shakrai]

Google doesn't care. CEO needs his stock options. That's why they sold a perfectly profitable and functional service.

If I sound bitter it's because I am, lol

"Don't be evil"

[jrq]

Seems like such a long time ago.
Honestly, the number of products and services, that Google has dropped, which should have had such a negligible affect on their bottom line, is staggering.
Not to mention the half-arsed, small office suite offerings with major flaws. I'm looking at you Google Drive permissions module.
Add that to the increasingly poor "search" function, which Google had, hands-down, complete superiority over the alternatives. Bing is now better, but it's not great. Who will step up and make Int

Re:"Don't be evil"t

[Malays2b0wen]

Part of the blame goes to everything having to be "safe", Woke, "Politically correct", DMCA, and keyword stuffing. Another part is Google offering companies to game the system by paying Google to move their results to the top and 'sponsored' results. Then some smartass decided to have the engine drop keywords left and right and try to ignore the double quotes between search terms. It's a mess, much of which was completely preventable.

I fear for Google Groups

[Malays2b0wen]

Say what you will about the content of Usenet, but someone needs to purchace their arcive and host it on line. People don't remember the huge undertaking to obtain posts dating all the way back to 1981, digging up old university backup compiter tapes and such. why you sometimes might find posts with subjects like "iiiijjjjhhhjg" and a body full of garbled text, because the tapes were already deteriorating at that point. After that Google bought the archive, and now Google is a 'fast food' company. It comes

Next Billion Users

[Macfox]

This was probably on the cards for some time. The service was stale. Not much in the way of new features and long-term annoying issues persisted.
Google has high standards. Where product revenue, value or user engagement plateaus, it's up for sale or retired. Just have a look at https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com]