When dealing with Google Apps, if they are not satisfied that my issue is perfectly resolved in a very short period of time, they hunted me down until I confirmed that everything was working honkey dorey. That includes cold-calling me to ensure everything is good. Their support is top notch for paid products.
I would far rather deal with Google than GoDaddy or some of the other domain registrants I've dealt with. I realize some people have had poor customer service experiences with Google, but mine have always been OK. Obviously I speak as a consumer, if I were running a business depending on Google services my support needs would be more urgent and my expectations higher.
Are you being sarcastic? Although it might not be well-known, Google actually does have excellent customer service. Google Places, Google AdWords and Google Analytics all have excellent customer support. My only complaint is that Google Analytics isn't as clearly listed if you're not an AdWords user.
Exactly my thoughts. It may be acceptable-ish for a personal home page, but using this for anything that's remotely useful and/or has more than one user, no way in hell.
Already tried that with email (Google Apps for Business), and the punishment was swift like the new Apple programming language.
Integration with Google cloud resources (a la AWS Route 53), 10 million lookups/year free, pricing appears off the bat to be $12/year, free private registration.
And support! "With Google Domains, you get phone and email support (M-F, 9am to 9pm EST)."
Will be interesting to see how this fares - perhaps Google can use positive results from here to improve their customer support image (despite Larry Page's voiced opinions saying Google call centers "are ridiculous").
Serious question: What happens in three years when Google decides to "sunset" this service like Wave, Labs, Reader, Buzz, Code Search, Knol, etc? Their target audience doesn't know how to work with registrars, which puts them in the worst possible situation when Google Domains is dropped. Will they help their users transition to other registrars?
It's been years since I worked in the domain name space, but as I recall vaguely, part of the registrar accreditation agreement is that you have provisions to transition your customer domain names to another registrar in the event you stop being a registrar, voluntarily or involuntarily.
The way this has worked in the past (again iirc) with other companies is that the registrar wholesale migrated their names to another provider who purchased them at a discount.
I've never been through the process personally, but given the quantity of registrars that are going into and out of business from time to time, I'm sure it's a process that's been pretty well standardized.
> Serious question: What happens in three years when Google decides to "sunset" this service like Wave, Labs, Reader, Buzz, Code Search, Knol, etc?
Any company can close a service (or go out of business and close all its service), and if a service fails to make a profit, eventually the company will almost certainly do so, one way or the other.
The only reason Google has a high count of such services is because Google went through a period where it started lots of services (and, also, because its remixed and rebranded a lot of services, so that more service names have gotten retired than actual services.) There's no strong reason to think that the actual risk -- particularly with paid services -- is particularly high with Google.
Has Google ever "sunset" a product they actually charge money for? That might help us understand what they'd do in this case. But I don't think there's a lot of precedent there.
Not sure what the terms for Domains are, but for App Engine they will give you at least one year, IIRC. They introduced the policy when they started charging for the platform.
Yeah, there is no way I'd trust Google with something as important as domains.
At this point they create and destroy products on a whim. They have 900 products so who cares if a million users get pissed.
Like Google Play Music All Access or any number of modern Google Things, this is something they're doing because "what if we don't", not because they have anything special to provide.
This is great. Google is a company that is very serious about security, and has essentially no customer support so no way to social engineer your way around that security. Perfect for domains.
Google does indeed have customer support, for paid products. Very good support in my opinion, I've called them for Google Apps support and Adwords, they were very helpful and hold times were super short.
So it is now possible to give Google, who is solely responsible for a high percentage of your site's traffic, access to:
- Your traffic (Search)
- Your analytics (Analytics)
- Your income (AdSense)
- Your advertising (AdWords)
- Your hosting (App Engine)
- Your DNS (Cloud DNS)
- Your domains (this)
That gives their search algorithm a pretty full picture of who owns your website, where you get your content, how much customers like it, any other sites you own, how much traffic you get, how much money you make.
Jokes (sorta?) aside, this betrays a serious failure in the way many people use network services such as those in your list - they often lack a second source. Since when did it become ok to have only one supplier for your mission-critical needs?
Having briefly looked at this I don't think I'd recommend it, especially if you are a "non US person reasonably believed to be outside of the US". Minimising dependency on Google, or any single company for that matter, is a good idea.
Not on your life. Domains simply aren't complicated or expensive enough to think twice about feeding Google's consolidation and analytics game. Perhaps harsh, but come on. Domains.
They stole $200 from my adsense account accusing me of clicking my own ads, which I never did. Their automated system never let me prove I didn't do it so they just stole my money.
I give a flying fuck if I was a false positive in a huge corporation with millions of customers they can't serve all with quality support.
No, Im not giving them my business never again until they apologize.
I don't get it, I already have a domain managed by Google with my Google apps account. I understand they shut off this service for new signups a while back. So are they releasing a _new_ managed domain service? How long until I am forced to go through some ugly merge process to put my Google apps account onto this new system? Would really love to hear the rationale for killing the old service to replace it with something that looks a heck of a lot like the old service. After shutting down Reader and all the trouble my Google apps account already gives me (every new Google service has issues with Google apps accounts in my experience) and other annoying things I really hope Google doesn't screw up my email. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
"No additional cost for private registration" is badly required in the industry, and glad to see Google take the lead.
Also, there should be an option to 301 redirect your blogspot blog to a domain held by Google. Lots of bloggers have outgrown their .blogspot.com blogs.
I'm excited. Not so much by the fact that Google now provides this service (which I may or may not use) but because this is going to put a tremendous amount of pressure on other ISP's, and competition is badly needed in this field.
I can't be the only one who likes using different businesses for different services? It's bad enough to use Google for email, calendar, docs. I wouldn't buy with / transfer my business domains to them.
> We aren’t ready for everyone to join yet (you currently need an invitation code to buy or transfer a domain), so we want those who join to play an active role in helping us improve. We're working hard to offer our customers the best domain experience possible, and we welcome your input, questions and feedback.
For a company that is notoriously bad at communicating with its customers, this is the one thing I would expect Google to not get right. Even at the private invite scale, I seriously wonder if Google will be communicating with customers with the tact and empathy required of good customer service.
google has attempted domain names previously, and it has previously sucked, very badly,
1. you could never get to a customer support, no phone number, and emails were all auto responses sending you to faq
2. there was no dedicated dashboard for domain management, billing etc
this is a revamp and product consolidation and it is super late to the game, hopefully the transition for current users will be easy
The reason it was unsupported was because they were just fronting for godaddy and enom and expected that you'd get support for the domains from those registrars directly.
A couple weeks ago when the new Google My Business platform (http://www.google.com/business/) was introduced I thought it was very interesting. To me it signaled Google's interest in entering the small business game by building a platform for SMBs to have a consolidated online presence.
They wouldn't have combined the products and created a platform if they didn't plan to expand it. I thought about how significant it'd be if Google included some sort of website builder along with the Google My Business platform. They organically have more reach with SMBs than any competitor can afford to buy. That combined with the high switching costs of websites and they have a massive opportunity as long as they don't misunderstand their target market.
Now they're offering domains and teaming up with some of the biggest website builders out there. I'd wager that 1) it's only a matter of time until their domain service is offered as part of Google My Business and 2) they offer their own website builder/CMS.
The website builder industry is competitive and noncompetitive at the same time. The companies that spend the most on marketing have the shittiest products and the companies with the most product potential 1) don't advertise or 2) don't cater to small businesses as much as they should. They're all asleep at the wheel in one way or another.
If I had to guess, it offers a service similar to what Route 53 and DNSimple offer for cloud-hosted apps: A CNAME-like functionality but that functions at the root level record.
> Create up to 100 email aliases with your domain, such as help@your_company.com or sales@your_company.com, and have them forwarded to existing email accounts, like [email protected]. This way, your email is a professional reflection of your business.
It's probably similar to Office 365 and the email alias option. With Office 365 you can set up a number of email aliases that can all be directed to one inbox. The downside is that you can't send from those alias. You will always only have one "sending" email address, unless of course you pay for another user inbox.
[+] [-] ep103|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddorian43|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Justsignedup|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aviraldg|11 years ago|reply
With Google Domains, you get phone and email support (M-F, 9am to 9pm EST).
[+] [-] benackles|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bakareika|11 years ago|reply
Already tried that with email (Google Apps for Business), and the punishment was swift like the new Apple programming language.
[+] [-] marban|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|11 years ago|reply
Integration with Google cloud resources (a la AWS Route 53), 10 million lookups/year free, pricing appears off the bat to be $12/year, free private registration.
And support! "With Google Domains, you get phone and email support (M-F, 9am to 9pm EST)."
[+] [-] pgrote|11 years ago|reply
This looks like a sensational service.
Curious the sign up for an invitation only asked if you've bought a domain before.
[+] [-] r00fus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebblue|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacefight|11 years ago|reply
Something they said they won't do on 8.8.8.8.
[+] [-] joeframbach|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattzito|11 years ago|reply
The way this has worked in the past (again iirc) with other companies is that the registrar wholesale migrated their names to another provider who purchased them at a discount.
I've never been through the process personally, but given the quantity of registrars that are going into and out of business from time to time, I'm sure it's a process that's been pretty well standardized.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|11 years ago|reply
Any company can close a service (or go out of business and close all its service), and if a service fails to make a profit, eventually the company will almost certainly do so, one way or the other.
The only reason Google has a high count of such services is because Google went through a period where it started lots of services (and, also, because its remixed and rebranded a lot of services, so that more service names have gotten retired than actual services.) There's no strong reason to think that the actual risk -- particularly with paid services -- is particularly high with Google.
[+] [-] colinbartlett|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pragmaticalien8|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uses|11 years ago|reply
At this point they create and destroy products on a whim. They have 900 products so who cares if a million users get pissed.
Like Google Play Music All Access or any number of modern Google Things, this is something they're doing because "what if we don't", not because they have anything special to provide.
[+] [-] spindritf|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boredinballard|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshbaptiste|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chatmasta|11 years ago|reply
- Your traffic (Search)
- Your analytics (Analytics)
- Your income (AdSense)
- Your advertising (AdWords)
- Your hosting (App Engine)
- Your DNS (Cloud DNS)
- Your domains (this)
That gives their search algorithm a pretty full picture of who owns your website, where you get your content, how much customers like it, any other sites you own, how much traffic you get, how much money you make.
And they can delist you whenever they want.
No thanks. I'll keep my Google to a minimum.
[+] [-] pdkl95|11 years ago|reply
Jokes (sorta?) aside, this betrays a serious failure in the way many people use network services such as those in your list - they often lack a second source. Since when did it become ok to have only one supplier for your mission-critical needs?
[+] [-] motters|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Paul_Dessert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thiz|11 years ago|reply
I give a flying fuck if I was a false positive in a huge corporation with millions of customers they can't serve all with quality support.
No, Im not giving them my business never again until they apologize.
[+] [-] tdicola|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|11 years ago|reply
I guess the new part is they're offering it standalone? Seems like a lead gen effort for AdWords/AdSense more than a serious product.
[+] [-] freejack|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinkerrr|11 years ago|reply
Also, there should be an option to 301 redirect your blogspot blog to a domain held by Google. Lots of bloggers have outgrown their .blogspot.com blogs.
[+] [-] laureny|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudonim|11 years ago|reply
http://gandi.net and http://dnsimple.com are both great options in this space.
[+] [-] hysan|11 years ago|reply
> We aren’t ready for everyone to join yet (you currently need an invitation code to buy or transfer a domain), so we want those who join to play an active role in helping us improve. We're working hard to offer our customers the best domain experience possible, and we welcome your input, questions and feedback.
For a company that is notoriously bad at communicating with its customers, this is the one thing I would expect Google to not get right. Even at the private invite scale, I seriously wonder if Google will be communicating with customers with the tact and empathy required of good customer service.
[+] [-] vachi|11 years ago|reply
this is a revamp and product consolidation and it is super late to the game, hopefully the transition for current users will be easy
[+] [-] freejack|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsh123|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] owenversteeg|11 years ago|reply
[0] http://domains.google.com/about/img/sprites/features.png
[+] [-] gmays|11 years ago|reply
They wouldn't have combined the products and created a platform if they didn't plan to expand it. I thought about how significant it'd be if Google included some sort of website builder along with the Google My Business platform. They organically have more reach with SMBs than any competitor can afford to buy. That combined with the high switching costs of websites and they have a massive opportunity as long as they don't misunderstand their target market.
Now they're offering domains and teaming up with some of the biggest website builders out there. I'd wager that 1) it's only a matter of time until their domain service is offered as part of Google My Business and 2) they offer their own website builder/CMS.
The website builder industry is competitive and noncompetitive at the same time. The companies that spend the most on marketing have the shittiest products and the companies with the most product potential 1) don't advertise or 2) don't cater to small businesses as much as they should. They're all asleep at the wheel in one way or another.
[+] [-] pdknsk|11 years ago|reply
What is Google Synthetic Records? Google Search doesn't know.
[+] [-] colinbartlett|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vowelless|11 years ago|reply
So there are no actual email boxes included?
[+] [-] thisisdallas|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedufer|11 years ago|reply