News Registrars Google is Selling Domain Names | Google is Selling Domain Names |
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| Written by Bret Fausett | |
| Thursday, 19 July 2007 | |
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Thanks to a tip from a long-time reader of my icann.Blog, in January, 2005 I was able to "break" the story that Google had become an ICANN-accredited registrar. Google later told reporters who picked up on the story that it was using its registrar accreditation to gain access to registry data that would improve its search results. In February, 2005, Eileen Rodriguez, a Google spokeswoman, told the New York Times that Google had "no plans to register domains at this time." Times change. While Google has not yet started registering names to the public through its own registrar-accreditation, it has partnered with other ICANN-accredited registrars to offer domain names as part of its Google Apps services. One of the things that Google Apps allows you to do is use Google's world class GMAIL with your own domain name. You can also use Google's instant messaging service, calendaring and start page. Don't have your own domain name? Google now will set you up.
The service is easy, impressive and cheap (list of features in service offering here). It's $10/year for a new domain name registration, which includes email, calendaring and all the other Google Apps, plus each domain registration comes with a privacy/proxy service, at no additional charge, to keep your name and address out of the whois database. Right now the only two registration partners are GoDaddy and eNom.
My very unscientific survey shows that GoDaddy is getting preference in the new registration assignments -- probably because they are offering Google higher margins -- as 20 out of 20 new .COM domain name registrations in my sample test were "randomly" assigned to GoDaddy (try it yourself here). (Another possibility, suggested by a reader, is that Google is setting a cookie for the first registrar selected, in my case GoDaddy, and then repeatedly presenting that registrar. That may be, but if were Google, I'd do it my way: make them bid against each other. ;-) What is especially interesting to me is that both GoDaddy and eNom are uncutting their own retail prices through this Google offering. A new .COM registration at GoDaddy is $8.95/year, and the GoDaddy whois privacy service is a $6.99 add on . That's $5.94/year higher through GoDaddy.com...and the Google service includes GMAIL and the Google Apps bundle. Meanwhile, over at eNom, new registrations are running between $6.95-$8.95/year, depending on your subscription level, with the whois privacy service, labelled ID Protect, an $8.00/year add on. Even eNom's preferred subscribers, who are placing $6995 on account with eNom, would get more favorable pricing for a name with privacy services if they purchased the name through Google. So what's happening here? At least two registrars obviously believe the volume that Google can deliver will offset their lower prices. What's not so clear to me is whether they will be able to sustain their own, higher, retail prices in the face of this new competition, which they are enabling, from the Internet search giant. How did I find out about the new Google domain name registration service? As I was setting up this site, an ad for the service appeared in my Google Adsense feed in the right margin.
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Comments (7)
  written by Joseph, July 25, 2007  written by Editor, July 25, 2007
Thanks, Joseph. I think it's a pretty nice service, which is why I'm surprised its still floating under the radar for most users. When it catches on, which I think it will, I wonder if GoDaddy and eNom will still be happy about?
 written by Andreas Bylund, July 26, 2007
Will you be able to move the domain name later or will Google keep the name forever? That's the big questions I got in my head while reading about the privacy service. How can you be sure you're the owner if you can't check the actual owner in the whois database?
/Andreas  written by Editor, July 26, 2007
Andreas, yes, you'll be able to move the domain name. The backend providers, eNom and GoDaddy, are bound by ICANN's transfers policies, which allow you the ability to move your name from registrar to registrar. As far as not seeing your name in the whois, that's a matter of trust, so pick your registrar wisely. Both eNom and GoDaddy are reputable though, so I can't imagine you'll have a problem.
 written by Dan Names, August 23, 2007
This is really new for me. No one can beat these prices if they include privacy. But anyone know if rebill is also $10??? or is the rebill higher?
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 30 July 2007 ) |
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I don't believe GoDaddy and eNom's retail business seriously considers it (yet) a competitive threat.