Google Now Offers Domain Registration Services

Google now offers domain registrations services as part of its Google Apps package of services. The price per domain is $10 and it has partnered with Go Daddy and Enom to provide this service. It is potentially one of the biggest threats that the low end of the market has faced for some time.

The attraction of this offer is that allows the low end users to obtain an all in one package of e-mail, word processing and spreasheets, and domain registration in one place. It would not be surprising to see Microsoft playing catch-up on this one. However the main threat of this offer is to the low end of the market - the clients who just want simple e-mail accounts with their own domain and perhaps the domain pointing to their blog’s website. As with so many things, Google makes it simpler. And that is what makes it a threat to the low end hosters.
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Written by John McCormac on December 27th, 2006 with comments disabled.
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10 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#1. December 28th, 2006, at 11:31 AM.

I think that Google is pitching for a different market Adam,
MS is aiming at the business user market and it is more of a software lock-in than Google’s play. If Microsoft starts to pitch the same kind of domain registration, pointing and integration for Hotmail then it could get interesting. This thing might take a few months to get going though - the launch has been relatively low profile. I don’t think that the usual press release recyclers even ran anything about it.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#2. January 2nd, 2007, at 7:03 AM.

It makes sense to outsource this Michele,
Godaddy and Enom already provide these services and Google doesn’t have to do much to implement it. This way Google keeps the Google domains within its own registry and the client domains on the other hosters. It is a smart division because Google gets a cut of the registration fees but does not have to really invest in infrastructure or employees.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#3. January 2nd, 2007, at 7:05 AM.

Probably an economy of scale Richard,
Remember that Google has a massive mindshare and even if it gets a small percentage of those more opportunistic domain registrants to sign up it is still a potentially huge figure. Most hosters tend to operate in their own country or at least common language area. But Google operates everywhere. Perhaps that’s why it outsourced it to transnational hosters like Godaddy and Enom.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#4. January 2nd, 2007, at 7:10 AM.

The difference between MS’s approach and that of Google is the key Graham,
MS is really adding the domains as an afterthought to the package (typically the software) and this reduces MS’s potential market. Google does not seem to have limited its market in such a way. The danger for the smaller hosters in each country is that Google could take over the bottom end of the market from them - these are the domains registered but never used by the clients. Apart from the registration fee, they are almost all pure profit for the hosters and over the past few years, many hosters have built up their businesses on this end of the market. Some are probably not diversified enough into dedicated servers and value added services (AV/Spamfiltering/ high end web development) to cope with a competitor like Google.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#5. January 2nd, 2007, at 7:12 AM.

Happy new year everyone. Just off to pop a few more paracetemol in the coffee. :)