Google going to sell domains

[chenzen]

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/23/google-gets-into-domain-sales/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb

Currently invitation only.
They are looking to provide

• Free private registration
• Free email forwarding to your personal Gmail inbox
• Free domain forwarding
• Support for up to 100 sub-domains
• Plans to support all the new gtlds in the next few years
  
• Full phone support

Hope they turn out to be better than the other registrars.

 

[Name Trader]

and they remediate all issues very fast

This is not true at all. They make it extremely difficult to remediate issues. Just try to get a domain name unfaillisted. It's nigh on impossible. You will give up long before you ever reach a satisfactory conclusion of a clean domain. There is no doctrine of innocence until proven guilty. Just the opposite, in fact. You have to prove your innocence, to Google's (arbitrary) satisfaction.

 

[JB Lions]

If you have nothing to hide with your domains and your private/published content, then Google domains should be your first choice because they are known for their security and they remediate all issues very fast.

What Stub said. They don't have a great history of customer service. Back to what I posted about them shutting down the affiliate network. This is how they announced it: - http://googleaffiliatenetwork-blog.blogspot.com/2013/04/an-update-on-google-affiliate-network.html

On a blog nobody really reads. This was news on some forums, that's how most merchants found out, from affiliates, not Google. I remember trying to ask a question, get a real response back in the day with some PPC, never got a real answer. I can pick up the phone right now and call GoDaddy and have somebody help we with whatever I need. If you have those same expectations with Google, you'll probably going to get let down.

 

[Dimitris]

@stub I was referring to exploitable security vulnerabilities that could potentially leak sensitive financial and personal information, not issues related to SEO or listing/delisting domains from SERPs, thats a different issue which I don't know and Google Search team is the responsible one to make a conclusion, not Google Security team.

 

[Name Trader]

That was just one example. Personally I have found Google try to obfuscate all efforts at getting any real help.

 

[Dimitris]

@JB Lions I can't say before I test really. Personally in the past 7 years, Google promptly resolved all the issues I had with AdSense and AdWords. Maybe they prioritize support to higher pagerank sites but not sure. Mine was a PR6 - PR7 at that time and was getting a personal reply via email within 20 to 40 hours. I'd like to get what you expect from customer support as well. Let's see. I hope to soon get my invitation. Personally, I usually rate online chat support because I don't use much phone. It will be nice if Google adds free live chat support for customers.

 

[enlytend]

There are reports that this appears to be using a godaddy back end ( see link I posted - comment from a beta invitee) which might introduce a few security concerns.

 

[Name Trader]

I have very little experience with adsense/adwords. So our experiences could be completely different.

 

[SearchEngineZ]

I've reconsidered my position. In an ideal world where nothing ever goes wrong with your domain names, Google would be fine - there's nothing evil they can do from just knowing who you are (except for perhaps trusting their privacy service).

But if something goes wrong?

I've worked for Google.
I've been a 7-figure AdWords customer.
I've been an AdSense customer.

All ended terribly - I was collateral damage. If Google's algorithm's merely hint that you might be spammy (I never was) then they get rid of you, and won't communicate.

So I reckon there is great potential for a domain name to be held hostage by Google.

 

[alien51]

I am more concerned about Google being that bureaucratic behemoth that it is. They seem to be trigger-happy in shutting you down first, then force you to appeal for reconsideration. If someone filed some kind of flimsy allegation against you, they could shut your domain down.

I am concerned about companies that are so big, they do robotic stuffs when resolving issues. Think about resolving issues with Amazon or Paypal.

 

[carob]

That was just one example. Personally I have found Google try to obfuscate all efforts at getting any real help.

Agree. My experience is similar They do not want to interact with human beings. Even paying customers. And they owe me a small sum of money which they refuse to pay or even discuss - a normal business does not behave this way - it would expect to lose customers and reputation. Google seem to think the normal rules do not apply to them.

 

[DomainVP]

I'm surprised google doesn't just create their own extension then tweak their algorithm to rank their extension greater than any others.

Agreed.

They will eventually, they already rank sites that implement Google products higher. Hosted by Google, welcome to the first page of SERP.