Tag: google

Google Domains closing – current .com domain name prices

September 24, 2023

I’ve spent a while migrating all of our non-.uk domain names to Google Domains – only for Google to announce that as of September 7th 2023 they are stopping all new domain registrations and moving the public domain registrations over to Squarespace (Google domains managed 9 years before being killed by Google).

We were paying £10/year for .com (and .net and .dev) domain name purchases/renewals with Google – but what are the “current market prices”?

(I was starting to migrate domains over to WordPress (mainly for the free year of renewal), but finding out that they don’t support DNSSEC and that there isn’t an ETA for its implementation means I might have to look elsewhere.)

Domain provider	.com price (one year)	Notes	Thanks to
Cloudflare	£7.47	Price converted from $9.15 USD. Does support DNSEC. Domains must use Cloudflare’s authoritative DNS provider.
WordPress	£10.00	Currently offering free transfer+1 year renewal for domains currently with Google Domains. Does not support DNSSEC.
ResellerClub	£10.44	Price converted from $12.79. Available to resellers only.
Amazon Route 53	£10.63	Price converted from $13.00
ClouDNS	£10.93	Price converted from $13.39 USD. Does support DNSSEC.
Dynadot	£10.99
OpenSRS	£11.23	Price converted from $13.75 USD. Available to resellers only.
Namecheap	£11.40	New customer pricing of £4.87.	Neil Turner via Mastodon
DNSimple	£11.86	Price converted from $14.50 USD. Requires a free subscription. Does support DNSSEC.
Shopify	£12.28	Price converted from $15.00 USD. Might be limited to using Shopify’s platform.
20i	£12.49	Does support DNSSEC. Reseller pricing £10.49 (reseller package costs £47.99/month)
OpenProvider	£12.76	Price converted from $15.58 USD. Members pricing £8.00 (membership costs $49.99/year)
OVHCloud	£12.95	First year registration: £10.19 Does support DNSSEC
Hetzner	£13.55	Price converted from €15.60 EUR.
Hover	£14.73	Price converted from $17.99 USD First year registration £13.10.
EasyDNS	£15.51	Price converted from $19.00 USD.
Squarespace	£16.00	New provider for Google Domains customers. First year registration £9.60
Hostgator	£16.37	Price converted from $19.99 USD First year registration £10.61.
Joker	£16.62
HeartInternet	£16.78	Advertised prices exclude VAT. First year registration £11.98
Mythic Beasts	£17.40	Advertised prices exclude VAT. Does support DNSSEC.	Jonathan Matthews via Mastodon
Bluehost	£18.00	Price converted from $21.99. First year registration £10.91
Ionos	£18.00	First year registration £1.20.	Howard Cheng via Mastodon
Domain.com	£18.00	Price converted from $21.99.
Network Solutions	£20.48	Price converted from $25. I brought my first domain from them in 1998 – NS has been sold 4 times since!
Easily	£20.89	Advertised prices exclude VAT
123-Reg	£20.38	Advertised prices exclude VAT. First year registration £5.99
GoDaddy	£21.56	Advertised prices exclude VAT. First year registration £10.78.
Glauca	£22.65
Namesco	£23.98	Advertised prices exclude VAT. First year registration £11.98
Gandi	£23.99	First year registration £16.54.	Philip John via Mastodon

Disclaimer:

Prices shown in £ GBP/Pound Sterling and are based on publicly available “single year renewal” prices at the date I added them to the table (with any different registration pricing noted).

Where possible, all prices include UK VAT/Tax and have been converted from any other currencies to GBP using Xe.com where the site itself did not provide currency conversion.

I can’t be held responsible for any errors, omissions, out of date information etc etc – I did my best! 😀

Edited 25th September 2023:

Add “Thanks” to people who reminded me of certain registries
Added Ionos, Mythic Beasts, DNSimple, Amazon Route 53, Easily, Hetzner, Network Solutions, Shopfiy, Domain.com, OVHCloud, Glauca, Joker, Hostgator, OpenProvider, Dynadot and Hover.
Added note of DNSSec support and reseller pricing to 20i
Corrected ordering placement of Heartinternet
Clarified Disclaimer.

DNSSec signed Google Apps/G Suite Email

November 2, 2022

5 Comments

I’ve been using Google Apps, aka Google Workspace aka Google Suite (or just G Suite) for a while now and it’s annoyed me that I was getting “marked down” on e-mail security testers such as Internet.nl and the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Check Your Email Security Service because Gmail for Business (G Suite) didn’t support DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) signed MX hosts.

However, I’ve managed to find Google’s DNS Sec settings which – combined with other setups on my main domains – mean I get 4 green ticks from the NCSC, 97% from Internet.nl (I’m let down by Google’s support of old TLS and Ciphers settings and no DANE TLSA records) and all green (apart from DANE) on Hardenize : so nice strong secure email!

Google normally suggest you use the following MX (Mail Exchanger) records in your DNS settings if you use G Suite:

Priority	Mail Server (MX Entry)
1	ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
5	ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
5	ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
10	ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
10	ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

The normal suggest Google Suite Email Servers for Businesses

(The records can actually be in any order and the priority can be anything – but Google do recommend that aspmx.l.google.com is set as the “highest priority” which is actually 1)

However, after a bit of searching (using DuckDuckGo and not Google 😉 ), led me to a blog post by Nis Bornoe and Kura the following G Suite DNSSEC signed MX records:

Google’s DNSSEC Signed Mail Servers (MX Entry)
mx1.smtp.goog
mx2.smtp.goog
mx3.smtp.goog
mx4.smtp.goog

Google’s “hidden” DNS SEC Signed MX Records

These domains are hosted on Google owned Charleston Road Registry (CRR)’s .goog top level domain (not to be confused with their .google and .gle brand top-level domains: or the 98 other ones they applied for) and .goog domains can “only be registered to Google Inc and its affiliates” so you’ve got some confidence they are legitimate.

However, whilst myself and Nis and Kura do not seem to have had any problems using these IPv4 and IPv6 supported DNSSEC signed nameservers (and according to DNSlytics and WhoisXMLAPI there are over 930 domains currently using them), they are not officially supported or documented (from what we can find) and have been running since at least 2019 – so they should be reasonably safe to use.

The only “catch” may may be that, for some reason, they do NOT have a reverse DNS (Pointer aka PTR) record setup – which is actually only a problem if those mail servers are use for sending OUT email (not just receiving it) – however, many only testers do assume that your inbound and outbound mail servers are the same. I can confirm, via a test email, that outbound mail goes out via servers such as mail-wr1-f52.google.com which are correctly configured.

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Google Checkout: Same fees as Paypal, what advantages?

March 11, 2009

3 Comments

Well, within a few weeks I was going to update a new e-commerce site hoping to utilise Google Checkout and the benefits it offered (the previously discussed lower fees than Paypal and those fees could be reduced to zero by advertising on Google). But no more!

Like many others, I’ve just received the email (below) from Google (yes, I’ve authenticated it: it came to a specific Google Checkout email address I’ve got setup, through Google’s servers and checked with SPF: it’s even on the Google Checkout blog) which basically state “We’re hiking up fees and cancelling the advertising discount”. What rate are they hiking up to? Well, their website shows the following fees and I’ve included Paypal’s Fees for comparison:

Sales volume per month	Google Checkout	Paypal
Less than £1,500	3.4% and 20p	3.4% and 20p
Between £1,500 and £5,999.99	2.9% and 20p	2.9% and 20p
Between £6,000 and £14,999.99	2.4% and 20p	2.4% and 20p
Between £15,000 and £54,999.99	1.9% and 20p	1.9% and 20p
Over £55,000	1.4% and 20p	1.4% and 20p

<sarcasm> Wow – so much difference. </sarcasm>

Yes, they are identically (ok, Paypal’s limits are “between £1,500.01 and £6,000″/”between £6,000.01 and £15,000″/”between £15,000.01 and £55,000” so there is a penny difference in 5 exact cases!). (cough)Price fixing?(/cough)

But surely Google Checkout will be cheaper than Paypal for “cross-border” transactions (i.e. where the buyer and seller are in different countries):

Sales volume per month	Google Checkout	Paypal
Less than £1,500	4.4% and 20p	3.9% and 20p
Between £1,500 and £5,999.99	3.9% and 20p	2.4% and 20p
Between £6,000 and £14,999.99	3.4% and 20p	2.9% and 20p
Between £15,000 and £54,999.99	2.9% and 20p	2.4% and 20p
Over £55,000	1.4% and 20p	1.9% and 20p

So Google Checkout is actually more expensive then Paypal: and Google Checkout hasn’t got the market penetration than Paypal, hasn’t got the ease of integration of Paypal, hasn’t got the wide range of integration options than Paypal, hasn’t got the facilities of Paypal…

I’d just like to know why I should bother with Google Checkout instead of Paypal (baring in mind, the more payment methods offered the lower the theshold for discounts I’ll reach on any one of them and the more transaction fees I’ll pay). To me, it looks like Google Checkout is checking out and won’t be here this time next year…

Update:
11/Mar/09 21:46 GMT: Marketing Pilgrim isn’t sure if this is a sign of Google Checkout’s Success or Struggle (one of the commenters, James Wilton, there actually said what I first thought: “Perhaps Google is trying to kill Checkout by attrition? They certainly haven’t been investing resources into it.”
11/Mar/09 22:11 GMT: Just to confirm, it isn’t just the United Kingdom prices going up – it looks like a world-wide increase!
11/Mar/09 22:13 GMT: Explode On Twitter has already dropped Google Checkout for Paypal (as Paypal is simpler for all concerned). Has Google really sounded the death bell for Checkout?
11/Mar/09 22:22 GMT: There is a Google Support Forum Thread about this and it appears from a quick scan people are going to be dropping Checkout for Paypal after this fee increase (some are even talking about ditching Adwords!).
11/Mar/09 22:28 GMT: @jessicamerritt says she’s going to stick with Checkout because of their chargeback policy (in particular the fair treatment section on their fraud/chargeback page). I’ve not handled a chargeback through Checkout so I don’t know how good it is, but I’ve found Paypal a lot more “friendly” and accommodating than dealing with Lloyds TSB Cardnet chargebacks. Yes, Paypal (and others) do “freeze the funds”, but you do get the money back after the dispute (and from their point of view, it stops bad merchants “doing a runner” with the funds).
11/Mar/09 22:43 GMT: For comparison, here is the Paypal UK Discount Fee structure and the US one is here.
11/Mar/09 22:59 GMT: KingJ is no longer recommending Google Checkout as he(?) handles a large number of cross-border transactions and hence the transaction fee increase will cost him more than Paypal. Stanstech is also saying Goodbye to Google Checkout. I’ve also just checked and Paypal’s Chargeback fee of £7 is identical to Google’s new fee for chargebacks.. Hmm…
12/Mar/09 00:20 GMT: There is now also (as there always is) a Facebook group against the price rises. I’m personally not against the price rises on their own, I’m just against them it takes away the only benefits of using Google Checkout there was and the fact the prices match Paypal’s point for point: do they really both have identical operating costs?
12/Mar/09 11:59 GMT: ValleyWag chimes in asking whether this is the start of Google introducing higher fees for all their services.
12/Mar/09 12:01 GMT: EdSF nicely sums up the advantages Paypal has and the poor customer service he’s had from Google.
12/Mar/09 15:56 GMT:The Register now has an article of the Google Checkout fee increases. It’s getting wide publicity, but will Google realise how much they’ve annoyed merchants and that there are now no advantages to accepting Checkout?