RIP Google Domains & Cloud Domains (updated)
Updated on June 26th to reflect new information about the demise of Cloud Domains.
On June 15th, 2023, Squarespace announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement with Google to acquire all assets related to Google Domains. For those who don’t know, Google Domains is a consumer “domain name registrar,” a company that allows customers to register and manage Internet domain names.
Under the terms of the agreement, Squarespace will honor the Google Domains pricing for “at least the first 12 months following the close of the transaction.” This means that customers who purchased a .com domain name from Google for for $12/year will have at least one year before the cost increases to the standard Squarespace price of $20/year, a 67% increase. In addition, Squarespace will be the official domain registrar for Google Workspace for at least the next three years, so customers who do not already have a domain name will purchase one through Squarespace as part of the Worskpace onboarding process.
Google Domains launched in public beta on January 13th, 2015 and became generally available on March 15th, 2022. Google Domains is now the fifth-largest registrar for .com domains, globally, which represent more than half of the 10+ million domains managed through Google Domains. In addition to .com, Google Domains supports more than 300 top-level domains.
Squarespace is also a domain name registrar and a domain reseller. Prior to the deal, Squarespace had millions of domains under management, including 850,000 .com domains. The deal with Google will had more than 5 million additional .com domains under Squarespace management as well as nearly 5 million domains from other top-levels.
I’ve been purchasing domains since 1995. In 1999, after ICANN was formed and the Network Solutions monopoly ended, I started my own business reselling domain names from OpenSRS, a division of Canadian company Tucows. In 2014, I was invited private beta for Google Domains. After testing it for a while with a few domains, I found it to be superior to all the other options and I proceeded to move all the domains in my life to Google Domains. In spite of owning a business that resells domains, I have been pushing Google Domains exclusively for years now.
Cloud Domains was released to private beta in mid-2020, was publicly announced on February 17th, 2021, and launched to general availability on October 27, 2021. As a Google Cloud service, Cloud Domains introduced the ability to purchase and manage domains programmatically using an API, as well as the ability to charge the registration costs to your Google Cloud Billing Account. Google Domains is the underlying registrar for domains purchased through Cloud Domains.
In my original Twitter comments about this announcement, I suggested that I didn’t think Cloud Domains would be directly impacted by this situation because it could simply be updated to use Squarespace as the back-end registrar instead of Google Domains.
However, that was before Gergely Orosz dropped this tweet, which suggests that Cloud Domains is impacted as well. FFS!
Google’s detailed help document “About the Squarespace purchase of Google Domains registrations” does not address questions about whether this announcement impacts Cloud Domains, or even Cloud DNS, which is also currently reliant on Google Domains.
As of June 26th, no official announcement has been sent to Google Domains customers or Cloud Domains customers about the deprecation of both services. However, on June 23rd, Google did provide more details about the impact to Cloud Domains in “The Overwhelmed Person’s Guide to Google Cloud,” a weekly email for Google Cloud Innovators compiled by Forrest Brazeal.
Impact to Cloud Domains
Cloud Domains is a Google Cloud Service (although not officially listed as a service in the terms) that provides developers with a front-end (including a user interface and an API) to registering and managing domains through the Google Domains registration. As a result of the sale, Cloud Domains is being deprecated.
Cloud Domains that exist in the beginning of the new year, which is when the registrations will be transferred to Squarespace, will be transitioned to Squarespace as the registrar of records. Once that transition is completed, you will use the Squarespace website to make changes to the whois record, to update your payment information, and to update the DNS servers associated with your domain.
Impact to Cloud DNS
Cloud DNS is NOT impacted by the sale of Google Domains to Squarespace. Cloud DNS is a Google Cloud Service (officially) that developers use to manage and host DNS zones and resource records. Your Cloud DNS services will not be affected by the transition. In addition, the DNS servers you are using if you take advantage of the built-in DNS features in Google Domains are being hosted by Cloud DNS. Those will not be impacted by the transition. Cloud DNS will continue to host your DNS records after the registrar-related activites move to Squarespace.
In addition, my current understanding is when your domains move to Squarespace, if you use the Squarespace interface to make changes to the DNS resource records on your Google Domains or Cloud Domains those changes will continue to be pushed to Cloud DNS to be hosted. Since your DNS servers will not be changing as a result of the migration to Squarespace Domains, your DNSSEC records will not be impacted by this change.
Related Links
- Squarespace press release (June 15, 2023)
- Squarespace Domains landing page
- Squarespace Domains FAQ
- Google Domains Help
- Google About the Squarespace purchase of Google Domains registrations Help page
