Google Domains to shut down, Squarespace to take over

San Francisco: Google Domains business is "winding down following a transition period," with Squarespace, a design-driven platform helping entrepreneurs build brands and businesses online, taking over the business and assets.

Squarespace announced on Thursday that it "entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement with Google, whereby Squarespace will acquire the assets associated with the Google Domains business".

This purchase includes "approximately 10 million domains hosted on Google Domains spread across millions of customers".

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023.

While the majority of the benefits of this transaction will be realised in 2024 and beyond, Squarespace believes it will be significantly accretive to its business in terms of revenue and free cash flow over time.

"In keeping with our efforts to sharpen our focus, we have entered into a definitive agreement with Squarespace for the acquisition of customer accounts of the Google Domains registrar business," Matt Madrigal, Vice President and General Manager, Merchant Shopping of Google, said in a statement.

Moreover, Google on its support page mentioned that the domain name registration and DNS delegation users will not be affected by the migration to Squarespace.

Once they are a Squarespace customer, they will be able to manage additional services (as available) through their management console.