Back in 2011, Google launched the Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (KBO) programme with the aim of getting as many Kenyan small businesses as possible to have an online presence by helping them setup simple websites using easy to use tools. The programme got more famous for scraping then local business listing site Mocality’s database to urge business owners to sign up than for its individual successes though the initiative did take off well with over 15 million small businesses enlisting. The intention however is very clear: get small businesses to have a reliable but cheap and easy to setup and maintain online presence. What if Google wanted small businesses in the whole world to be able to do this and get even more done? Enter Google Domains.
Announced today but still in beta, Google Domain’s aim according to Google is to help small businesses have an online presence. By now that sounds familiar, right?
Businesses will be able to search, find, purchase and transfer the best domain for their business – whether it’s .com, .biz, .org, or any of the wide range of new domains that are being released to the Web.
By partnering with Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and Shopify, companies that specialize in various solutions tailored to lift off the burden of having to setup your website, domain and all that stuff for individuals and small businesses at affordable rates, Google aims to act as a registrar of domains using Google Domains. By doing just that, Google is entering the same market as other big name players who have dominated the industry for long and have hundreds of millions of customers around the globe. So what will it be offering that is different from them?
Google will not only allow you to register your domain name through its service but also commits to do so for you at no cost (privately). Additionally, you’ll be able to create upto 100 email addresses on the same domain and upto 100 customized sub-domains. The company will also be using its own DNS servers so consistent and reliable uptime with fast response times is almost guaranteed.
With Google’s unquestionable dominance over the search engine space, it is not hard to see where they are going with this since their interest at this moment is just the domain registration.
You can request to be invited to test Google Domains here.
