Google Domains Pros And Cons
Google domains offers a lot for a competitive rate when it comes to domain name registration. This is a program that could expand a great deal over time, but that is more than just potential, its something that works at a very high level though it is still in Beta.
There are a lot of positives with this program, and the pricing is no worse than with any of the most popular domain name registrars. In some cases, its even a little better for the most popular TLDs.
The main detracting factors are how limited the program is. Though it is in Beta, this is a service only available in about 15 countries and that doesnt support integration with most major hosting providers.
Further, choosing to register your domain with Google Domains and then going to look for another third-party hosting company adds a layer of complexity that most people just dont want or need. For instance, if you register with BlueHost and choose their hosting, everything is in one place, and all you lose is free WHOIS privacy registration and ease of G Suite integration.
Ultimately, if the added steps are worth it to you, go for it. Privacy is becoming more important by the day, and who knows, Google Domains could grow into a much more influential product over time.
Pros
- 100 custom email addresses per domain
- 100 subdomains per domain
- Backed by the Google brand
- Excellent customer support for all via phone, chat, or email
- First chance to register several new Top Level Domains
Check If Its Not Trademarked Or Already Used
Before you move forward with a specific domain name, check to see if the name is available on social media sites, as well as if there are any trademarks already registered to the name.
To build your brand, its ideal to have the same name across your domain and social networks. This builds familiarity and makes it easy for your visitors, fans, and customers to find you around the web.
Avoid legal issues you should stay away from names that already have trademarks.
How can you quickly check social networks and trademarks for your potential domain name?
Its quite easy with a tool like Knowem. Search your potential domain name itll show you if its available throughout over 25 popular social networks and if there are any trademarks already registered to the name.
If its taken, consider tweaking it so that you can create original social media profiles.
Intuitive Interface And Tools
Google Domains interface is intuitive and straightforward. If youve used any Google service before, youll have no problem navigating the interface.
Once youve signed in, the control panel allows for the purchasing, transferring, and managing of domain names. Google Domains is integrated with other Google services for easier management.
Google Domains dashboard also provides domain name system settings, domain forwarding, and billing management.
The domain registration process is straightforward. You can purchase multiple domains in a single checkout and opt for auto-renewed billing for each of them.
handles the purchases. The supported payment methods depend on the users billing address.
The Favorite feature allows saving domains you want to register in the future. You can share a link to your favorite domains a handy feature for agencies and companies.
Whats more, Google Domains makes sharing domain management with other Google users easy. The domain sharing feature allows modifying domain registration, website, and DNS settings without changing the domains original ownership.
The domain migration process is also streamlined by the DNS Export Tool it allows users to download the DNS records in standard formats like BIND or YAML.
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Where To Register With Google Domains
When youre buying a domain from Google Domains, you have a few options. The following bullet points will help you find the right place to start.
- Transfer a Domain: transferring a domain from another registrar to get the benefits offered by Google domains? This is the place to get started. Pricing varies depending on the domain type and other variables.
- Look Up a New Domain: new domain availability is shown with this easy lookup tool. Various TLDs are also suggested if the main TLDs are taken.
- View All Plans and Pricing: while most of the prices offered by Google Domains are competitive, some are a little high. Its worth taking a look before you commit, even though you need to register every domain individually.
No matter what stage youre at, you should have no trouble getting set up with a Google Domains account or registering a domain with Google Domains. That is unless you live outside of the 15 currently supported countries.
Right now, Google Domains only supports users from Australia, Brazil, Canada, the UK, the USA, Japan, India, and eight other countries. You can, however, sign up to receive alerts if new countries, or your country specifically, become available.
Google bases this decision off of the billing address on the account. If you happen to live in an unsupported country but have a billing address in a supported country, youll be able to use the service.
Domain Settings And Controls
Google uses partners GoDaddy and eNom to register domain names, so you could use either of those registrars if they had a better discount or options available at the time of purchase. However, you will be able to access domain settings from within your Google Apps control panel and do not have to sign in with those registrars. You could move your domain between registrars if you preferred the price, control panel or integration with Apps that comes from Google. However, you must turn off Yahoo’s domain locking function before you can switch the domain name to any other domain registrar.
References
Recommended Reading: How To Transfer Domain From Wix To Squarespace
Can I Host My Site Using Google Domains
Google Domains is only a domain registrar, so it doesnt sell hosting services. Since building a website requires not only a domain name but web hosting, too, youll have to purchase the latter from third-party hosting providers.
If you register a domain with Google Domains, you can point it to Hostinger. However, separating your domain from your web host costs more than getting them bundled together. Plus, its easier to manage them and receive support if theyre handled by the same company.
We recommend checking our web hosting plans out. Most of them come with one-year domain registration, saving you money and the hassle of connecting the domain to your hosting account.
Whats more, you get to pick a specific hosting type to better accommodate your websites needs.
Make Sure Its Easy To Pronounce
As easily as your domain name rolls off the tips of your fingers, it should roll off the tip of your tongue.
This makes it easier for visitors to share your domain name by word-of-mouth and makes it easier for you to share your site with friends and potential customers.
You can test this the same way as with the spelling.
Write your domain name on a piece of paper and ask 10 people to pronounce it. If more than a few people struggle to pronounce it, you should simplify it.
Heres what to keep in mind: You want your domain name to be passed along easily by you and others. The only way for that to be possible is if its 1) easy to spell and 2) easy to pronounce.
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Argentinian Buys Googles Domain Name For 2
Designer living in Buenos Aires says he snapped up google.com.ar after noticing it available in registry
Googles entire web presence in Argentina was last week briefly redirected to the website of a 30-year-old designer who bought the companys domain name for just £2.
Nicolas Kuroña, a resident of Buenos Aires, says he noticed that the companys services were down when he began receiving messages from friends on WhatsApp. But rather than doing what many would have, and shrugging before returning to work or taking the outage as a sign to have a tea break he headed to the Argentinian domain name registry, NIC Argentina, to see if he could work out the cause.
There, he says, a search for Googles URL, google.com.ar, revealed that the domain name was available for the low price of 270 pesos £2.09.
The domain expired, I was able to buy it legally, he tweeted that evening, as other Argentine web users began to spot his name on the new records. I have the purchase invoice, so Im calm.
Esto es lo que vi el día que compre el dominio de , gracias por el apoyo !!
Googlecom One Of The Most Valuable Domains On The Internet Was Mistakenly Sold For $12 Last Fall
Google paid $12,000 to get it back.
The buyer was a former Googler, Sanmay Ved, who discovered Google.com on the list of domains available for sale on September 29. He bought it, charging the $12 fee to his Discover card, never really expecting the transaction to go through.
“I was hoping I would get an error at sometime saying transaction did not go through, but I was able to complete purchase, and my credit card was actually charged!” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn last fall.
He told CNNMoney he made the purchase simply out of curiosity.
“I thought at some point in time it would block me out, but I wanted to see how far it would go,” he said.
The transaction did go through – for about a minute. He said during that brief time he got a flood of information from Google users, though he was not able actually change the Google home page. Then he got an e-mail from Google canceling the transaction.
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What Is Web Hosting
Besides a domain, every website needs a web host. While the former is the address of your website, the host is where it lives.
Web hosts provide servers that store your website contents and files, then transfer them across the internet to display them to your visitors. While domains are all but necessary to navigate to your website, without a host, your site wont be live at all.
While many web hosts offer domain registration, and you need both to get online, these are two separate services. The host keeps your site running, and the domain lets people connect to it. You can purchase bundled domain and hosting from many hosts, but its also possible to buy them both from separate vendors.
Short Is Better Than Long
In general, when it comes to the length of your domain, shorter is better.
According to research from Domain Registration.com, the most common name length is approximately 12 characters.
All of this data shows that you should keep your domain name concise.
Aim for 6-14 characters and remember the shorter, the better. Most likely the shorter domain names are taken a LONG time ago and sold for thousands of dollars. If you cant find something short, make it brandable.
Our own site websitesetup.org is exactly 12 characters.
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Google Domains Is Great For Domains Registration Godaddy Is Better For Beginners
The decision of whether to go with Google Domains or GoDaddy boils down to your general needs and experience levels. Heres a quick head-to-head comparison:
Google Domains
Choose Google Domains if youre looking for basic domain registration and dont mind having to connect your domain to your hosting yourself. It can work out cheaper than GoDaddy and other domain registration providers since there are no big price hikes. Because Google Domains doesnt provide hosting, you will have to sort that out for yourself. You can connect your domain to any hosting service or website builder but Wix is a good place to start.
Opt for GoDaddy if you want the ease of having your domain automatically configured for web hosting, WordPress hosting, or the GoDaddy website builder.The free trial of the website builder is a good starting point, and you have plenty of time to decide whether its the right fit for you and you can easily disconnect your domain name and sign up for WordPress hosting instead and benefit from GoDaddys 30-day money-back guarantee on your hosting, too.
Google Domains Vs Namecheap
If youre trying to choose between Google Domains vs Namecheap, the picture isnt quite as clear.
Namecheap offers a competitive service with:
- Regular prices that are still competitive with Google Domains, while also offering generous first-year discounts.
- Free included domain privacy, just like Google Domains.
- A complementary hosting service ,
- A larger selection of domain extensions.
Google Domains still has plenty going for it, like its integration with other Google services and Google DNS. But honestly, you wont go wrong with either Namecheap or Google Domains.
In fact, when we polled our Twitter followers about their favorite registrars, Namecheap actually beat out Google Domains:
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Google Forwards Your Emails Godaddy Offers Email Services
One advantage of having your own domain is setting up a professional email address. Both Google Domains and GoDaddy allow you to give off a professional email presence, but how they work is starkly different.
With your Google Domains domain, you can create up to 100 email aliases that will forward to an email address of your choosing. By contrast, GoDaddy provides a truly professional email setup, but for a fee.
GoDaddy offers three email plans, with their smallest plan offering 5 GB of email storage along with the ability to sync email, calendars, and contacts across all your devices. For those who want a separate email plan rather than using Gmail or their personal email, this is a solid alternative but does incur a monthly fee.
Google Domains Alternatives Other Domain Name Providers
With all those other domain registrars out there, we should mention a few of the popular ones, and see what they have to offer over Google Domains.
- Advanced search or beast mode helps you quickly find your ideal domain.
- Free WHOIS privacy protection.
- Paid email hosting, DNS security, hosting, and SSL certificates.
- Paid privacy protection and email services.
Overall: A fair choice, but you get the best value by purchasing their hosting as well, since your domain comes free for a year.
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Anatomy Of A Domain Name
Domain names are typically broken up into two or three parts, each separated by a dot. When read right-to-left, the identifiers in domain names go from most general to most specific. The section to the right of the last dot in a domain name is the top-level domain . These include the generic TLDs such as .com, .net, and .org, as well as country-specific TLDs like .uk and .jp.
To the left of the TLD is the second-level domain and if there is anything to the left of the 2LD, it is called the third-level domain . Lets look at a couple of examples:
For Googles US domain name, google.com:
- .com is the TLD
- google is the 2LD
But for Google UKs domain name, google.co.uk:
- .com is the TLD
- .co* is the 2LD
- google is the 3LD
*In this case the 2LD indicates the type of organization that registered the domain