Comment by wise_young_man | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wise_young_man | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty interesting move. Google has started offering domain names [1] in beta, but with my experience with their support I don't plan on using it.

Pricing is a big part of domains for me and AWS pricing seems a bit high to me. I'm also not sure on if whois privacy is offered or included? If it was then the domain price would be fine. I noticed a Route53 zone is included, but is it included in the price or costs additional? I had a domain with low traffic and it was $6/year just for DNS hosted zone so if it was included in the domain price I would probably move all of my domains, though whois privacy is still a big concern.

For the past few years I've been moving to Hover ($15) and then lately Badger ($10) as it is cheaper, but they both have whois privacy bundled in with the domain price as I think it is an important service. I previously worked on and maintained a domain registrar so these hit pretty close to home, but I'm still not really happy with any solution. It seems Amazon's model of getting pricing lower didn't really come through with this new offering just comparing to the current market.

Could hosted email be the next big thing AWS introduces? With as many people who are frustrated by lack of good options (Google Apps) it could be an interesting next stage for AWS (App Hosting, Domain Registrations, and Email Hosting), then I don't know what will happen to traditional hosting providers, but I think they will be trying to figure out how to stay relevant.

[1]: http://google.com/domains

> Pricing is a big part of domains for me and AWS pricing seems a bit high to me

I suspect this is because of their partnership with Gandi to make this happen.

But really, we're only talking a few bucks either way. If you are using AWS, is it likely to matter whether you could find a domain name $2 cheaper somewhere else? You are paying more because not only can you register domains, you can manage them with a slick HTTP API that knows about a bunch of other AWS services.

That, and you're typically also paying for a more expensive SSL certificate, much more expensive wildcard SSL cert, or much much more expensive EV or signing certificates.

That can be their next step, selling their own SSL certificates.

> I had a domain with low traffic and it was $6/year just for DNS hosted zone

Amazon should give away free hosted DNS zones for Amazon-registered domains. The $0.50 per hosted zone per month doesn't scale down very well. I have a dozen domains I've accumulated for various projects I'll probably never finish. Their traffic is almost zero. I would much rather use Route 53 DNS for these domains, but at $6/month it's not worth it. I would seriously consider transferring domain registration from Gandi to AWS if it included free hosted zones.

EDIT: I didn't realize initially that Amazon is in fact partnering with Gandi, which doesn't change anything, but it's interesting.

whois protection is included;

http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2014/07/31/amazon-...

"When you purchase new domains via Route 53, the service will automatically configure a Hosted Zone for each domain and ensure the privacy of your WHOIS record at no additional charge".

configuring the hosted zone... but do you get charged for it as well? i can't tell by that language.

EDIT: just tried to set one up - it looks like it's still an extra charge, so.. $12 for a .com plus minimum $6/year $18/year - kinda high if you don't need all the flexibility of the amazon platform. I don't see a lot of domain parkers taking them up on this.

I don't think domain parkers are Amazon's target market.

"If you don't want to use your domain right now, you can delete the hosted zone; if you delete it within 48 hours of registering the domain, there won't be any charge for the hosted zone on your AWS bill"

Source: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/reg...

Good catch, thanks. I didn't see that when I was reading on my phone.

In that case I'm actually really excited about this then as the pricing seems pretty good with the registry price and ICANN domain fee plus the cost of maintaining a registrar and the WHOIS privacy I think I will be moving my domains.

FYI, Google Domains includes customer support. I have been using it for a little while and it's really nice.

Is Google the registrar, or are they using GoDaddy or similar for it?

With Google Domains, Google is its own registrar. It is not a reseller for someone else.

Also looking for something similar to what Google Apps had in the past with up to 50 free email accounts per domain.

It includes email forwarding, which you can attach to gmail.com account.

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