Google's Latest Service Goes Up Against GoDaddy

Google is adding a new service to its long list of utilities: web domain registration.

The company announced on its Google+ blog on Monday the launch of an invite-only beta for Google Domains. The post says Google's research found as many as 55% of small businesses don't have websites. It's Google Domain's mission to shrink that number.

Among other features, the Internet giant is promising subdomains (like maps.google.com), new domain extensions as they become available, and up to 100 email addresses per domain, the new service's site says.

Google is also offering website building services through partnerships with Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, and Shopify to help users build their websites without needing to learn to code.

It seems obvious that a company that makes the majority of its money through search would want to help get more businesses online. But considering Google also has tools for analytics and cloud storage, it seems like a natural fit for a domain registration service, perhaps even more so than a longtime registrar like GoDaddy.

Google could also, in theory, reward Google Domains users with more visible search results, but that would just be evil.