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 September.
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.
- GoDaddy includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry, GoDaddy Corporate Domains, MeshDigital, the 5 “Go Country” registrars, and 123 Reg
- Namecheap includes Namecheap and Spaceship
- Tucows includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
- Newfold Digital Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain, Bigrock, Network Solutions, Register.com, MarkMonitor, SnapNames registrars, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape. There are other Newfold registrars, but these are the biggest.
- Squarespace includes Squarespace and Google
- TurnCommerce Includes NameBright and DropCatch registrars
- IONOS includes Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys, and world4you
- CentralNic includes Key-Systems, 1API, Internet.bs, TLD Registrar Solutions, RegistryGate, Moniker, Instra
shop.reallybigidea.com says
Nobody knows but it was my idea to bring Google to domain business.
Tom says
Also Squarespace has a different business model since it is primarily known as a website builder.
LGBTQ Notary Association 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.
LaocheXe 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.
Angela says
Good to know, thank you! I am not pleased with the Squarespace interface or pricing structure
Dan says
I used google domains for the super easy interface. Squarespace’s UX sucks and they’re more expensive for an inferior experience.
Andrew Allemann 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.
justin liles 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.
Angela 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.
Lucas 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.
Steven says
The price. Nothing else
J riley 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
Stephane 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
360 Automotive Inspection Services 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
Andrew Allemann 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
Sam Da Fonseca 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?
Andrew Fair 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.
livestrong2109 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.
Jason H says
Square Space is terrible. Since our domains from Google Domains are being transferred there, I thought it’d be a good idea to keep everything with Square Space. So I transferred some domains to Square Space, and they overwrote the A record in the process without giving me the option to override it. So now our client’s site is going to be down briefly upon the transfer completion until we fix the A record and propagation is complete. Their price is also outrageous considering how bad their system is. Their support was unapologetic, unhelpful and rude, too.
Literally go with anyone else but Square Space.