Google domains are closing! Where are you moving your domains?
Hi indie hackers, domains that many of us keep on Google Domains have been sold to another company. It was the cheapest place to buy domains. Simple and effective. But again, Google didn't surprise us.
My question is where are you planning to move your domains to?
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Huh, since when?
I've used Namecheap in the past, relatively cheap and straightforward. Support has always been helpful.
I saw the news today, after the news, everyone was thinking where to move the domains. I generally see cloudflare, name.com and namecheap recommended. I think I will transfer to one of them.
I agree
I highly recommend porkbun.com, I have been with them for years with no issues. The pricing is good and the support is excellent.
Another vote for Porkbun here. I've used them for several years and their service and support have been second to none.
Porkbun is really good! No extra marketing, works very well and cheapest price for almost all of the TLDs
First time I've heard of it, I'll take a look, thanks.
one of the cheapest registrars. The interface looks old but works well.
I've been using Cloudflare for years, and I think they might have been cheaper than Google Domains. But it's been great for me.
This is nothing surprising for Google, they keep hurting themselves more than the competition can do.
I totally agree, I have one domain, but for people with many domains, the migration will be a hassle. I see a lot of people recommending Cloudflare, I think I'll switch to it.
Yep, I've also been on CF. I only use the Domains and DNS (along with DDoS protection) services on CF and those products have been fantastic.
Move to Cloudflare
Cloudflare sells domains? What is the big advantage to buy domains there?
Cloudflare. I have been using them for sometime now and it's very good and cheap.
Cloudflare. Cheap and you have all the benefits that Cloudflare brings already there :)
Before Cloudflare I was a happy Namecheap customer, but Cloudflare is cheaper.
It might not support all TLD, but the most common ones and some more are definitely supported.
I’ve used Namecheap for a while and never had any issues with them. I’ve recently been transferring domains over to Cloudflare because it’s cheaper but not all TLDs are supported.
I stick with namecheap. Easy to use, works, and support is really good (I once got a 400 euro refund that I didn't really deserve)
Gandi.net is good for people who want a really ethical company.
Gandi WAS a really good choice but they got sold to a private equity firm last year and have been hiking their prices like crazy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35080777
What happens if I do nothing with my google domains? Do they get transferred to squarespace automatically?
Yes, I know it's being transmitted. But prices will increase. Those who want to carry anyway want to carry it mostly because of this and its ease of use.
That caught me off guard, dammit!
Hey mates, inspired from this post and another one on Hacker News, I built a page dedicated to finding alternatives to Google Domains https://www.saashub.com/replace-google-domains. It'd be great if you let me know what you think.
Welp. I was slowly in the process of moving everything from GoDaddy to Google. Now I'll try Cloudflare, I suppose.
I looked at many suggestions, I saw that most of them charge many times more than google domains, these fees are important for people like us. I think I'll export it to cloudflare.
Why not to a domain provider like namecheap or gandi.net. It's very possible CloudFlare will sell their domain offering too since it's not a core product.
I just want to have as few accounts as possible. I already have a CloudFlare account, so adding domains to that seems better than making a new account for NameCheap or Gandi.
Cloudflare claims that they sell domains with 0 revenue. It's a complementary service to create a better dev-centeic ecosystem.
I use them for other things, and I'm very happy with them.
For domains I use namecheap though, because I'm with them for years.
I’ve used Namecheap for a while and never had any issues with them. I’ve recently been transferring domains over to Cloudflare because it’s cheaper, but not all TLDs are supported.
UNorthodox Reasons for choosing CloudFlare after a couple of hours of research:
Fri. Sep. 8 2023 10:50 to 14:22 EST
These are my opinions only, not the truth. Whatever objections you have to my words are probably correct. ;)
CAVEAT: Cloudflare has no .ca support (for my fellow Canadians)
A related question - if you buy a domain from a provider and you use their mail system are your emails authenticated by default? I believe this was the case if you took a domain from Google and then used the G suite.
As for where I will move my domains, there are a few good options. Here are some domain registrars that I prefer:
Namecheap: They offer competitive prices and a variety of features, including free WHOIS privacy and domain forwarding.
GoDaddy: They offer a wide range of features, including domain parking, email hosting, and web hosting. However, GoDaddy's prices can be higher than some other registrars.
Namesilo: Namesilo is a newer domain registrar that has quickly gained popularity
This is wack...When it becomes necessary, I'm transferring all my domains to the tried and true GoDaddy, the registrar I've been using for 20+ years.
Damn!
I have no clue. It was so easy and simple to use. I would hate to have to move to GoDaddy or something.
Why should we move them at all? what happens if we don't?
Google domains provided many conveniences and their prices were very affordable, the company sold said they would increase the prices, which is a big problem for us. Anyone looking for an affordable and easy to use place for it.
I've been using Name and it's been great. Also, I've heard some really positive things about PorkBun. Apparently, they offer super affordable domains and their customer service is top-notch.
Having been a long-time user of Cloudflare, I can confidently say that their services are not only cost-effective but also offer exceptional performance and reliability when compared to Google Domains. Cloudflare has consistently proven to be a top choice for many, including myself.
It's intriguing to witness how Google, at times, unintentionally undermines its own position in the market, inadvertently providing opportunities for competitors to flourish. However, this healthy competition among industry giants ultimately works in favor of consumers like us, as it drives innovation and leads to improved services.
If you have any specific questions or need further information about Cloudflare or Google Domains, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to assist you to the best of my abilities.
I wonder what they will think seeing all these people moving their domains
I wonder how this is going to pan out for those who decide to stick with Squarespace. From what I know, domains purchased on Squarespace are hosted on their platform so either Squarespace will have to upgrade their services or people get tech headaches.
Either way, I'd definitely recommend Namecheap. Been using their services for almost a decade now and have no complaints!
Interesting news. I just registered a Spatial Tech Forum after Apples vision pro announcement.
Thank you all for the recommendation. I use GCP to host the site. Do the providers mention below integrate well with GCP? (In terms of LB, DNS config)
A while ago, I’ve migrated all my domains to cloudflare. Cheap and efficient, can’t ask for more.
I was thinking of porting to cloudflare too, but I found out that it doesn't support .one extension.
I had stop using Google Domains years back once I used namecheap. customer support is exceptional. for country specific domains I prefer local registrars above namecheap. I recently bought nolcard.ae from Tasjeel and it is amazing for .ae domains.
Just in general, I would not put my domains with a big tech company that might decide to block my account, including domains, with little recourse.
Go with a dedicated registry depending on which country you live. E.g. hover.com for North America or INWX in Germany/Europe. This minimizes the chance that you ever lose control of a domain on which you built a business.
You can still use all the the good CloudFlare features like DDoS through name server delegation. But you can pull that delegation any time and keep control of your domain.
I've been using "aruba dot it" since 2010. I will keep using that.
Try to stay away from Google's products, this is where they usually end up
Never used google domains. I use Porkbun.
I've been using Gandi.net for years and they've been great. No frills. No marketing emails. They just do exactly what I need. I haven't really looked at alternatives so I'm not sure how they compare on price.
Well, there is one thing for certain, I should not use any google services if I don't want to deal with migration headaches down the road... So no google cloud for me I guess.
I'll wait and see what SquareSpace will do before moving my domains. I've recently used PorkBun for my latest domain. Like them so far.
Is this a good news or a bad one?
For normal extensions - cloudflare.com/dynadot.com / namecheap.com / name.com
For exotic extensions/ccTLDs - netim.com
For best prices/no upsells - porkbun.com
Personally I use many registrars due to large domain portfolio and see which ones are having best prices around using sites like tldes.com but consolidate them to one of the above registrars from 2nd year onwards.
I bought mine using AWS Route 53, it has all integrations for AWS cloud besides regular stuff, liked it a lot. So if you run your infrastructure on AWS, this is an obvious choice.
Previously used dynadot.com. Great FAQs there and overall good experience. Built by engineers for engineers.
I would stay away from things like GoDaddy, NameCheap and similar, they have tricky policies where they increase the pay amount. Dynadot also is guilty of that, but the increase was very minimal, at least in my case.
I did an extensive research several years ago on domain registars, and dynadot was the top on my list at the time. But now I would definitely stick with AWS Route 53.
Cloudflare seems like good solution as well, since most CDN are theirs, so if your CDN is Cloudflare might be good to use them.
Also I would stay away from anything that has ties to EIG, as I understand they are very big conglomerate of hosting providers which buys hosting companies and increase prices, tricky policies etc., if you ask this question on reddit, they will tell you the same. As i understood the first rule is to avoid them.
I've used a few different registrars over the years but have all of them currently with Namecheap. No complaints, I'll probably use them if/when I need another domain.
In my opinion the best place to buy cheap domain is porkbun.com
Never heard... I doubt reliability .
Never had problems with them. It's really easy to work with. I'm a customer for already 4 years.
I just migrated both of my domains to name cheap today. Really seamless process. No app downtime. Only downside I saw is that you have to “repurchase” it (extends it for an extra year). Although, that last part could’ve been a mistake on my end 😊
Wow, no one actually mentioned GoDaddy. I wonder why, I have my domains there and never had any problems. Interesting to see how not so popular as I believed they are..
GoDaddy starts cheap (heavily discounted for the first year) and then it increases the cost every year. I started as a GoDaddy customer and then moved to Namecheap. Namecheap has a very responsive support team too!.
It doesn't increase the cost every year. Not every year. Simply put:
if a .com is normally $10/year, you get it for $1-2 for the first year and then it jumps to the normal price of $10 for ALL subsequent years, it does NOT increase every year.
It's a nice incentive imo. If you're someone trying new things out all the time and validate MVP, it is actually nice to have a $1 .com then if MVP finds product market/fit you pay the normal price after year 1, if not, you've lost one dollar one. I really don't see an issue with how GoDaddy does this.
Not true. GoDaddy increases the renewal price of domains very frequently, and that’s why you end up paying more almost every year. It’s more apparent when you renew a .me or other expensive TLDs.
I can’t post links yet, but search for the GoDaddy renewal price increase on Google, and you’ll find multiple links - the latest of November 2022, when they increased the renewal price by 7%.
On the other hand, Namecheap never increases (or decreases) the domain price from what you initially paid for.
They're popular with the wider domain market, but not so much with savvy customers.
I have to help customers with their GoDaddy domains quite often, some annoyances I see are:
There question isn't where to move them, but why? First of all, Squarespace isn't going to change pricing for at least 12 months. Second, if those domains are good, then why not hold them where they are, or sell them? Moving seems like extra work that doesn't save a lot of money.
If you have 10 domains, what are you paying, extra $100 a year? It would cost you more in your time commitment to move those domains.
If you are holding 5,000, that might be a different view, but then you'd automate transfer to the cheapest provider, and chances are that was never Google, and therefore your portfolio is not with them.
p.s. I am a little biased. I just wrote a blog post on what it costs to hold domains in perpetuity. Moving hosts isn't going to save you. https://smartynames.com/blog/business/NTJmOWIxNzAt
I like using hover.com
Been using them for years.
No fuss, no 100s of upsells. Think the only other service they provide is email (I use fastmail for email)
Comes with free WHOIS privacy.
Not the cheapest, but that’s fine since it does all I need it to do which is provide an easy way to purchase domains and nothing else.
Highly recommend checking them out.
Hover has always treated me amazingly.
Yup! +1 for hover.com
I've got like 10 domains there. Maybe I'll move the active ones to Vercel?
Thoughts on Bluehost?
I've heard of it but never looked, I'll look into it now. thanks.
I have never used google domain. It have been hostgator and namecheap. Super reliable so far
This comment was deleted 10 months ago.