Google Domains Agrees To Be Acquired By Squarespace Tmmotiongh.com
Google has been heavy-handed with the ax lately, shuttering various seemingly successful projects. We saw Stadia go down not too long ago, and Grasshopper the coding app was nuked just this week. Now, Google and popular website development and hosting brand Squarespace have announced that the latter is purchasing Google Domains and its associated assets.
Google Domains was started in 2014 as a website domain name registrar from Google. The service benefits from deep integration with Google Workspace while offering common features like DNS hosting, dynamic DNS, domain forwarding, and email forwarding backed by Google’s robust infrastructure and 24-hour support. At the backend, people using the service enjoyed access to top-level domain name extensions like ”.guru” and a clean UI to manage their website.
Although it came out of beta just over a year ago, Google Domains currently manages around 10 million domains for millions of customers. Following the acquisition and a transition period, all these will be managed and operated by Squarespace. For now, nothing is changing for the end user, and they can manage their Google Domain as usual. Google even put up support documentation addressing any immediate concerns you may have.
Some may argue that an acquisition is preferable to an outright shutdown, though Squarespace isn’t making any promises for how things will be post the transition period. For now, it says Google Domains renewal pricing will not change for existing customers for a full year after the acquisition goes through. Until then, Squarespace is in the unique position of being probably the only entity offering billing and support to Google Workspace customers who purchased Workspace access as an add-on through Google Domains.
Although the formal announcement is here from both parties, the takeover is still waiting on regulatory approvals before everything is finalized. The transaction is expected to be complete in Q3 2023, and hopefully, customers stay happy with Squarespace.
