Who says a registrar has or needs to sell domain names to end users?
Google probably did that to enhance their search abilities, gather data, and
use that to enhance or offer new services. Apparently it is still a worthwhile
investment for them.
Hmm, for some reason I recall Google being registrar for quite a while now. I remember seeing Google a long time ago on the ICANN accredited registrar list. They just arent providing registrations to end users at this time.
Are they working on providing end users with a nice registration system? Perhaps. But only time will tell. For the time being, it looks like they are just a registrar for the sake of being one and for their own use.
No, Google expressly asked for .Pro to be bundled with the other rubbish. A spokesman said that now they have made all their shareholders very rich, it's about time they helped out akcampbell.
I have registered a few names through them about 10 months or so ago, using some of their google aps and hosting. Basically good for family sites and what not is what I used it for. Coupled with gmail, it actually works very well.
I have something like xxxxfamily.net through them. There are about 10 members of my family that use it for xxxx@xxxxxfamily.net email. Then they just collect all their other email in there as well. One stop shopping. Share a calander, docs, etc.
OK, I like google. I know I shouldn't but they just make it to easy to give them big huggy-wuggies.
Google became a registrar in 2005 I think, so this is nothing new. As the article states, they did it to gain access to the information registrars get and access to the master domain database. Probably to leverage the keyword part of domains for adsense.
__________________ AdoptableDomains.com ~~~~~Finding Good Homes for Good Names~~~~~ FuelPrices.mobi - Fish.us - ManhattanNewYork.net - Salesmen.info - SoundSystems.org
Dickering.com - JobPlacement.biz - LotteryTickets.ws - Deleted.cc - Names.im - MP3.hn
Just another step of many for google to take over the world. I dont understand how huge companies like Microsoft can get sued for monopolization and google hasnt yet... mail, phones, domains, hosting, phone toll free directory, street view, mad more other craziness too. I do love google though.. Thanks for this info.
One day, Google will come up with a new extension .goog or .go
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Yes they became a registrar back in Jan of 2005 - and the purpose (although at the time it was limited to 8 domain tlds) was for the access to the entire domain backend database for sniffing out link partnerships (round-robin linking) and to combat the prolific use of expiring domains (especially from DMOZ at the time) with PageRank still attached, to populate backlinks for instant popularity for your own sites.
This led to a common misunderstanding when Google placed some filters based on the domain database into effect that there was something called a "sandbox" - which really was just a filter based on how you were obtaining links and how quickly you got links based on domain registration
More importantly - today we see huge sales of domains being made based on the existing PR (the fake toolbar green thingy Google added in their toolbar for WMs to gaze at) - when as soon as the domain is transferred Google installs a filter that zeros out any previous popularity and page rank - at least as soon as their bot catches the move - and there are a lot of WMs out there that are going to be sorely dissapointed riding this "catch a domain with PR" wave - I have to laugh every time I see someone post in the SE forums about why they are now in the "sandbox" after they bought all of these domains with PR
Yeah, that new's site often times just republishes stuff. I think that article they republished was from back in 2005 when the original announcement was made.
Vint Cerf said Google became a registrar to know when domains were expired for search engine results purporses. That didn't work thanks to changes in expired domain markets:
Most Google services is associated with FREE web servises. As result many websites consider activity vith it as fraud. (for example e-mail: SMB@gmail.com) And what is it domain with registrar Google? Who knows?
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