To give you the short version of the story, Google has just entered the domain registrar business.
It’s also kind of strange that they’ve decided to make the move this late, considering all the types of services they’ve been offering for years now. Being a domain seller surely fits well into their other properties and projects.
Anyway, the new service is simply called Google Domains.
Some details worth pointing out:
- The service is in beta and invite only.
- You can request an invite at any time.
- There’s no info about how long do you have to wait to get the invite.
- The domains will be sold for $12.
- There will be no additional costs for private registration, free email aliases, sub-domains, and other domain management tools.
The official announcement on the Google+ Your Business page reads:
We’re beginning to invite a small number of people to kick the tires on Google Domains […], a domain registration service we’re in the process of building. Businesses will be able to search, find, purchase and transfer the best domain for their business – whether it’s .com, .biz, .org, or any of the wide range of new domains that are being released to the Web.
Google Domains isn’t fully-featured yet, but we’re giving a small group of people the ability to buy and transfer domains through it and send feedback on their experience. […] We want input on all the ways we can help make finding, buying, transferring and managing a domain a simple and transparent experience.
The homepage of the project can be found at: https://domains.google.com/
Right now, it’s a fairly generic website with a background picture, a search field and some info below. In other words, it pretty much does look like a beta indeed.
If you want to request an invite, you can go to this Google Form.
Google Domains has the potential to become one of the main players on the market, but it will all depend on how effective their system is, and how much easier to use it will be in comparison to other already established providers.
They may also have to experiment with different price points. Selling domains for $12 a piece isn’t bad from a consumer point of view, but it surely isn’t the bargain of the year either.