Squarespace buys Google Domains and Google transfers all domains

The American Squarespace announces that it is acquiring website host Google Domains. All assets from Google’s service will go to Squarespace, and all domains registered with Domains will be transferred to Squarespace servers.

In a blog post promises Squarespace that current Domains customers will remain covered by current Google terms and pricing for at least 12 months. This will only become relevant once the transaction is official, which is expected to be the third quarter of 2023.

About ten million domains will be transferred to the new company. Google Domains customers are additionally encouraged to build a website with Squarespace tools. This encouragement also concerns switching to the latter’s subscription structure. Google assures that nothing will change to existing websites, but that customers will eventually have to switch to Squarespace’s payment system. Both companies say they offer support for this.

There is also the issue of Google Workspace. A domain can be created via the umbrella subscription for professionals and companies. Squarespace writes that it will become “the exclusive domain provider for at least the next three years” for Workspace customers who create a domain through this service.

It’s not officially known how much Squarespace paid for Google’s assets, but a source says to Bloomberg that it concerns an amount of 180 million dollars. There was no indication so far that Google wanted to discontinue its Domains service. The service only became fully operational in March 2022 after a beta phase of more than 7.5 years.