With all the advertising Google does you would
think they might mention that they are an accredited Domain
Registrar too. But the only place they talk about it at all is
under the Google Apps section since you get free Google Apps
(including Gmail - probably the most used and known application).
But as I understand it you can get most if not all Google core
apps free anyway so maybe that's not such a big advantage on
Google Domain Registration for none business users.
There are some additional features if you go for
the advance applications (each one runs about $50 per year). The
business upgrade gives you up to 25 gigs of email storage and some
good calendar and interactive features with Microsoft Exchange.
And some third parties like Intuit, Trippit, and others have
developed very specific add ons to the base Google Apps that could
be of use to some.
I gave up trying to figure the rhyme or reason
Google does anything years ago. Mostly on the part of the search
engine division since they keep many things secret. But one reason
they may not be touting the fact that you can use them for domain
registration is that they already have federal, state, and even foreign
governments investigating them on several other fronts.
So some people might see Google Domain Registration as just one
more area of business conflict (they could be accused of favoring
domains that are registered through them in search engine
results). I seriously doubt they would do that since it's not a
high profit area and if it caught they would pay a severe price
from the federal government. Not worth the hassle and like I
mentioned they already have too many people after them on other
issues.
So why would you want to register your domain name
with Google? I don't know of any feature or difference between
Google Domain Registration and any other popular registrar. Prices
tend to be within a few dollars across all domain registrars,
around $10 per year. There are some that offer lower prices if you
buy other products, or multiple names or years.
In my opinion Google already gets enough of my
money and knows far too much about me and my websites. Lord only
knows what these guys at Google are really tracking, most likely
anything they want since they aren't talking. As far as customer
service goes, Google doesn't rank high on any list (well, unless
you're a partner or Amazon). They certainly don't offer up any
great response to search engine questions other than a standard
response letter or best bet an ambiguous answer of some type.
Google's domain registration process is fairly
simple and similar to all others. You check out through Google
Checkout of course but that's OK. Last time I looked it was $10
per year on single year purchases. One positive note is they don't
try to sell you a bunch of other features and they do give you
these features for free:
-
Private Domain registration
-
Automatically configured to work with Google
Services
-
Email, calendar, instant messaging ala Google
Apps
The privacy deal is good but many other domain
registrars offer that free too. It's a personal choice like any
other on whether you want to use the Google Domain Registration
service. I prefer NameCheap
since I trust them and their customer services is second to none.
I don't think it will help or hurt your domain name in any way if
you register with Google.
So go ahead and check them out if you want. I'd
give the URL but they change pages around too much to be sure it
will be the right one by the time you read this. Just do a search
in Google of course and click on the appropriate link to find the
right web page.
If you have any other questions about Google Domain
Registration, just shoot
us and email from the link below.
Send your questions to: info @
domainregistrationadvsior.com (take out the spaces)
