Google Puts Domains Up For Sale

Not its domain names, of course, but ones that people may want to register while signing up for Google Apps for Your Domain services. It could be an indication of Google’s future intentions for the Apps services too.

Domain Registration The Google Way
Come for the applications, stay for the domain. That’s Google’s approach to enhancing the Google Apps for Your Domain service. The company has partnered with a pair of registration services, eNom and GoDaddy, to offer .com, .net,.org, .biz, and .info domains for $10 per year.

Google engineer Costin Manolache also noted the offer includes private registration. This keeps personal information out of view of whois lookups.

Google Apps for Your Domain offers five services that can be private-labeled by the organization. It’s a quick and currently free way to offer members of an organization email, IM, and calendar services branded with the organization’s name and logo.

A Google feature change article wouldn’t be complete without a comparison to Microsoft. The competition between the two has been a wonder to watch, as Google poses a challenge to Microsoft that few technology companies ever have.

Microsoft offers a free domain registration as part of its Office Live service. There are three tiers of service, and they focus on establishing a website and email for the domain; higher tiers provide the Office Live Business Contact Manager service.

But Microsoft tucks in something else with all three tiers. They provide a free copy of the Office Live adManager beta tool, which is used for managing adCenter campaigns.

Google has kept its focus on effective communications over a variety of options. They have noted ever since the launch of the Apps service that a premium version will become available in the future.

Maybe that version will roll out an e-commerce edition of Apps. Google has Base for storing product information, Checkout for processing payments, and of course AdWords, their revenue generator, to promote a website and its products.

Google also has a partnership with Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks accounting software, in play. This placed management of AdWords, item posting to Base, and an option to get listed in Google Maps, in most of Intuit’s 2007 product line.

The pieces are mostly there to make Apps a gateway to e-commerce. Instead of Microsoft, maybe Google will compete directly with Yahoo’s small business e-commerce service.

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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.