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.

 

[Dreads]

Ah, I need a domain register that the general public trusts and understands. Its hard to get my clients to trust namecheap, godaddy ect.. when it comes to entering personal information for a domain. So I can expect this to make my life a bit easier

Side note, first post in a couple years LOLOL

 

[enlytend]

+1 this. (no pun intended)

I am glad I am not the only one to remember froogle before the rename!

I go back to those days too. And more importantly, when the Froogle "replacement", Google Product Search, was free. Now they're all Adwords PLA's (but the average person hasn't got a clue)

Now, its dumb down to encourage ad clicks (we can argue that they need to make money, beyond the scope of the discussion) and stemming is awful as its tricky to turn off - as soon as they switched between solely word stemming shop->shopped,shopping etc. to including related words such as store,market,supermarket etc when you cant turn it off its messed it up... you can quote phrases but other than that the old fashioned all other words are okay but +keep that word the same technique doesn't seem to work anymore. Perhaps there is an option in preferences to disable, who knows or who cares... too long winded for a quick web search :D

They removed the + search operator in 2011 or 2012, they removed the ~ (synonyms) last year. Hummingbird - trying for make it more conversational and interpretive, rather than keyword-driven.

 

[buyselldoms]

I completely agree enlytend, the other day I was searching for right angled hdmi cables - Google was happy to stem completely unrelated cables such as dvi, vga etc. similar but not the same lol

Okay to be fair, I just click on a retailer link from Google then search their website, but its not the point... as its easier to just go straight on amazon than bother with Google.

Yeah the operator had disappeared for a while so not anything new; but Google should do what it wants for basic users and allow advanced-level users to use operators and such to better their search results. Well, to be fair, most of the world allows cookies and don't clear them, so Google probably appears more relevant when taking into account past searches... and that's when you aren't logged in too.

 

[Viqta]

I am unsure right now whether to be happy about Google coming in to sell domains. Let me just remain indifferent for now.

 

[Dimitris]

Internet is public. Nowdays to use it in the first place you must agree that none of your information is 100% secure and private and if intelligence agencies want to target you, they can do it fast with a simple invoiced request. They can get any information about you from any registrar in the world, whether you use whois protection or not.

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. Their two-factor authentication works perfectly. Their page load times are also very fast and their user interfaces are super simple and relaxing to the eyes.

In the last 14 years, 95% of the vulnerabilities affecting Google's online properties resulted from bugs in their client-side code and usually affected Google users who are not vigilant on how to use and protect their information online, e.g. bug exploitable from client-side, some requiring unwitting user interaction and some other not; and users falling victims of phising attacks. Also, there were many cases of registar online support staff who have fallen victims of phishing attacks.


The only other registrar staff I personally know that never "replied" to phishing attacks, is the staff of Network Solutions; at least before it was acquired by Web.com and their staff maybe mixed.


PS: I have no Google stocks :P, I was not paid by Google to post this, this is my personal opinion based on many years of infosec experience and tracking data loss incidents, remote attacks and vulnerability advisories.

 

[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.