As a recent covert to Google Domains, today we announce the sad news that Google has sold its domain registrar business to Squarespace.
In a deal worth an alleged $180 million, an estimated 10 million domain names will soon be handled by Squarespace instead.
Pending regulatory decisions, the deal is expected to go through in the last quarter of this year. Squarespace has said that it will honour the pricing afforded by Google Domains to customers for another 12 months.
Google started registering domains in 2005 and offering the service publicly in 2015, so only using them for the last couple of years has made me a late covert. Unfortunately, the move to a cheap and reliable domain name registrar has been relatively short-lived in my time of buying and managing domain names for myself and clients, and so after 23 years with first Easyspace then 123-Reg, I am again on the hunt for a better domain name registrar.
Easyspace
As a reader of Net Magazine in the days when I started on the World Wide Web, I dived into domain name registration over an ad on the publication. Easyspace were regular advertisers and so in 2000 I registered and purchased my first domains.
There was even a reseller account at Easyspace called Easynic, where I could get discounts for referrals and purchases, The “nic” in Easynic stood for Network Information Centre, and these entities were the ICANN accredited registrars of the time.
I forget why I moved from Easyspace but I think it was a string of acquisitions, the clunky interface and disproportionately increasing prices that pushed me to move away around 2003-2005 but I then moved to 123-Reg, the UK-based registrar.
123-Reg
Another domain name registrar with high visibility from a broad marketing reach, 123-Reg were the go-to registrar for me for the next 18-20 years or so.
123-Reg were cheap and simple, easy as 123 I suppose you could say, and were a solid and reliable registrar got my portfolio pf domain names.
That is until they started charging got both services and even domain names that I hadn’t ordered. It wasn’t just 22i that were subject to these oversights. We consulted for a local digital marketing agency in Surrey and Hampshire for nearly a decade and saw them subject to the same issues. Ultimately, we complained and got our money back.
The chapter of 123-Reg overcharging customers was concerning, and the motivation was questionable. Under the guise of offering “value” the company turned from a cheap and reliable registrar to something less beneficial.
Despite the controversies, we stayed with 123-Reg, amongst other issues like problems with downtime on their control panel, until ultimately one last straw broke the camel’s back.
In 2017 huge US registrar GoDaddy acquired Host Europe Group (HEG), the owners of 123-Reg. I didn’t know about this until later downtime and control panel changes brought this to my attention.
When a critical domain of mine name expired and I renewed it with the so-called “grace period”, I was charged an absolutely eye-watering amount for the privilege of renewing under the new GoDaddy ownership and finally decided to take my business elsewhere.
Google Domains
And so in the early 2020s I’d revised that Google Domains existed as a registrar. What better organisation to place my trust in than the global behemoth whose network was robust and charges were extremely reasonable. After all, in terms of network infrastructure, there was Google Cloud and now Google Domains.
I started weaning myself off 123-Reg u see its new GoDaddy overlords, amid onto the far more reasonable and expectedly reliable Google Domains.
That was short-lived.
Having been with Easyspace for 3-5 years, then 123-Reg for the next 18-20, just 2 years with Google Domains was the shortest tenure with a registrar.
Squarespace
And now that my cherished Google Domains status I has been sold on to a business that provides website management SaaS.
As an old school website designer, builder, and developer, before moving on to CMS such as Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress, Squarespace was an alien concept to me. That is until I worked for a local client (Hawley Place School)
Doing SEO on Squarespace was challenging too – whilst you can do some of the on-page SEO, the technical SEO is impossible because it’s a proprietary and closed system.
So whilst I could see the Wix-like appeal, I wasn’t a fan of Squarespace.
And now that they’re going to be the registrar of my beloved Google Domains, I’m not happy yet again. I have this concern that they will not just use their new registrar status to help existing and new Squarespace customers, but use it to try and convert us domain-only clients. Also, I expect them to leverage proving to pay for the acquisition – $180 million is a big sum and they’ll need to pay that back ASAP. Increasing prices and adding on services seems to be the modus operandi for the less scrupulous domain babe registrars over the years.
Cloudflare
I want domain names that are genuinely excellent value for money. I want a safe, reputable, and reliable domain name registrar. I’d like to pay for my domains and not be leveraged for extra money or additional services. As a domain name customer I want to be able to make my choices when I want to, not when the registrar needs more revenue.
So with all that in mind, I’m going to move all my domains to Cloudflare now. I’ve had them “on the side” as a registrar and I think they’re the next best option now. Let’s hope this lasts a few years longer than the last lot!
Conclusion
If you need someone to register and manage your domain names, call us on 91252 692 765 and we’ll be happy to handle this service for you.