I Get To Play With Google Domains

Google sent me over an invite to the new Google Domains beta a few days ago and since then I’ve been playing around with the platform and getting familiar with it. After using it for a few days and going through the entire process to purchase a domain name and get it setup – I have to say this was probably the best domain-name buying experience I ever had.

The entire process of registering a new domain name took me roughly 2 minutes (literally) – which I did at 8am this morning and well before my first cup of coffee. That alone should’ve made every bit of this experience horrible and extremely frustrating. Alas I already had my Google Wallet setup, and Google had provided me with 1 free domain name registration to try things out so that saved me the time of having to input my credit card details. If I correctly remember my Google Wallet setup this process wasn’t much of a hassle either. From start to finish this was probably the simplest process I’ve ever encountered when buying a domain name. I didn’t have to fill out 3 different entries for my WHOIS information, I wasn’t asked if I wanted to purchase 289 different addons. I wanted a domain name – and I got it within minutes.

So apart from saying how clean the interface is and how simple everything is – what else have I learned? First off – Google is pricing their main TLD domains at $12. They are including free WHOIS privacy, along with 100 email aliases and 100 sub-domains. Furthermore in-case you’re wondering Google Domains does support some of the new TLD domain names that have been released such as .email, .company, and .technology.

So what does the actual interface look like, especially now that I have an active and registered domain name in it? Well upon logging in you are immediately brought to a list of your domain names:

Clicking on a domain name opens up that domain names Website tab which allows you to quickly setup forwarding for your domain name or immediately connect your domain name to Wix, Squarespace, Weebly or Shopify. In the future I hope to see a direct integration with Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics – allowing new domain names to automatically have their properties setup.

Next we have the Email tab which lets you make use of the 100 free email aliases/forwarders that come included with your domain name.

The Settings tab lets you review the remaining term of your domain name registration and add additional years to it. Review whether or not your WHOIS details are set as public or private, and subsequently edit those details. Furthermore you can also request to unlock your domain name and get your authorization code should you wish to transfer it to another registrar. For security purposes I didn’t take a screenshot of all my personal details.

Finally we have the Advanced tab which allows you to manage the nameservers for your domain name, set custom DNS records, or make use of Google’s synthetic records to quickly add various features (think of this as a more advanced way of adding forwarders or sub domains).

If Google passes me along any additional invites for the Google Domains beta I’ll be sure to give them out here. Otherwise you can head on over to https://domains.google.com to join the waiting list. If anyone else has had a chance to play with the Google Domains beta let me know your experiences in the comments below.