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Unsurprisingly, the strong brand name mattered.
Squarespace acquired Google Domains on September 8, 2023, and we now have an idea of how important the Google brand name was to ginning up registrations there.
ICANN has published data from .com registry Verisign showing new registrations at each registrar for September.
In August, Google Domains and Squarespace registered a combined 250,324 domains. In September, they registered just 189,713 new .com domains.
Google is using Squarespace when people buy some of its products that need a domain and is also sending people to Squarespace when they land on the Google Domains site. (Google Domains still shows up #2 for me in Google when I search for domain names.) Still, it’s clear that the brand name drove a lot of registrations. And these numbers reflect only .com domains, so it’s surely a bigger delta when including all domains.
The winners? Other registrars that picked up the registrations that would have gone to Google had it still been a domain registrar.
Below is a chart showing how the largest registrars did in terms of new registrations in September. Note that the rankings include multiple registrar accreditations within families of registrars. You can see the list at the end of this post. (I started including Mesh Digital and the five “Go” registrars (e.g., Go China Domains) in GoDaddy’s numbers this month. This added about 2k new registrations and 530k total registrations.)
1. GoDaddy.com (NYSE: GDDY) 715,431 (775,175 in August 2023)
2. Namecheap Inc. 283,620 (291,747)
4. Newfold Digital 216,538 (169,663)
3. Squarespace (NYSE: SQSP) 189,713 (250,324)
5. Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) 163,648 (163,629)
6. Gname.com 133,917 (115,409)
7. IONOS 79,420 (99,454)
8. Alibaba 71,895
9. Dynadot 71,212
10. Wix 70,798 (71,825)
Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of August.
1. GoDaddy 56,142,674 (55,638,534 in August 2023)
2. Newfold Digital 12,380,044 (12,370,532)
3. Tucows 11,113,636 (11,131,272)
4. Namecheap 9,387,689 (9,376,275)
5. Squarespace 8,184,335 (8,166,306)
6. TurnCommerce 5,940,486 (5,958,992)
7. IONOS# 5,669,464 (5,659,585)
8. Alibaba 4,187,402 (4,213,654)
9. Gname 4,237,209 (4,155,354)
10. CentralNic 3,826,492 (3,910,648)
Many domain companies have multiple accreditations, and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.
Categories: Domain Registrars
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says
Nobody knows but it was my idea to bring Google to domain business.
says
Also Squarespace has a different business model since it is primarily known as a website builder.
says
I have transferred all of my domains from Google (Squarespace) to WordPress domains, which currently offer the most competitive pricing at $12 per .com domain. What’s noteworthy is their commitment to maintaining this price, which is certainly a positive aspect. In my evaluation, I explored various domain registrars, and candidly, their proposed pricing falls far short when compared to what WordPress domains offer. It is somewhat surprising not to find WordPress mentioned in this article, possibly due to the lack of awareness regarding the better deals available through WordPress.
says
Going from $12 a year to $22 is not in the budget, so looking for one that is at least $12 is what I did. I didn’t know WordPress, but I found CloudFlare does it for under $12 a year, so I’m moving to them.
says
Good to know, thank you! I am not pleased with the Squarespace interface or pricing structure
says
I used google domains for the super easy interface. Squarespace’s UX sucks and they’re more expensive for an inferior experience.
says
You make another good point. Although it’s $12 a year for the first year, Squarespace shows that it’s $20 for the second year and beyond, so that could be deterring people.
says
I did the same thing, went to register and then saw squarespace, annd left. Immediately went to Hover (Tuscows) and registered. To me, it was more around familiarity of the platform. I’m not used to buying domains on Squarespace but was in Google.
says
Google Domains started at $12 for most .com domains. Web building, while basic, was complimentary with a hosted domain.
Squarespace starts at $20 for the same domain plus a monthly subscription fee for web design/hosting.
I think that’s the primary reason in the drop.
says
I’m from Brazil and Google’s prices were pretty good for us down here. Squarespace did us dirty and I’m scared to death about how much it’s going to cost me to renew my domains.
says
The price. Nothing else
says
I wrote a post about this – the problem was price and USER EXPERIENCE. Sqspc’s registration/cart system didn’t hold a session. I had roughly 15 domains I was registering when they switched over, I found the first one, added it to cart, by the time I found the second domain and attempted to add it to cart, the cart timed out and I got an error. I played with it some more to find out the timeout for the cart was 30 seconds. Wtf?!? I think this unusable user experience is the reason for the ss decline in registrations.
https://twitter.com/JtheBruce/status/1711557994994180163?s=19
says
Squarespace domains are simply way more expensive than Google Domains, that’s why most people I know (me included) migrated to a different provider
says
Squarespace has a hold on my domain and I can’t re register it or re activate it on another host. I was auto paying for my domain thru Google and now I can not transfer my domain
says
You can’t transfer a domain from Squarespace? Have you tried following these instructions?
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205812338-Transferring-a-domain-away-from-Squarespace
says
How long will it be before squarespace will demand a separate subscription for hosting? At the moment I pay for server space via my Gmail account. Will this aspect change?
says
Yeah, GoDaddy is horrible and many of those are.
Y’all just need to use Cloudflare, it’s wholesale pricing, like $9.15/yr for .com.
says
Thank you, that’s the route I took. Free ssl, dns protection, ddos protection, all that I was already using for less than what I was paying to snuggle up to Google. Why wouldn’t I consolidate everything in one place.
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