Answers to common questions about the transition of your Google domain to Squarespace.
Note: If you received an email saying you need to take action for domain forwarding and/or email forwarding, follow these steps.
On September 7, 2023, Squarespace acquired all domain registrations and their associated customer accounts from Google Domains. We then began migrating domains in batches from Google Domains to Squarespace. The migrations are now complete, and all domains have moved to Squarespace.
If you had a Google Domain that moved, Squarespace is your new domain host, and you'll manage your domain and its settings in a Squarespace account.
Where do I manage my domain?
If you had a domain with Google Domains, you'll now manage the domain with Squarespace.
If you already have a Squarespace account
If you already have a Squarespace account associated with the email address you used to log into your Google Domains account, go to squarespace.com/login and log into your Squarespace account as you normally would. Your domains will appear in your domains dashboard.
If you don't have a Squarespace account
If you didn't have an account with us prior to the migration, we automatically created a Squarespace account with the email address associated with your Google Domains account. To log in:
- Navigate to squarespace.com/login
- Click Continue with Google.
- Select the account associated with your Google Domains account and continue logging in.
If you encounter an authorization error when attempting to log in using your Google account:
- Return to squarespace.com/login and click Can't log in.
- Click Send verification email. This sends an email with the subject "Verification email for Squarespace Domains" to the email address associated with your Google account. You'll need to verify your email before continuing the account setup process.
- Open the verification email and click Verify.
- Create a password for your new Squarespace account and click Continue.
If you encounter any error messages or experience any issues logging in, please contact us.
How do I manage my domain?
Your Squarespace domains dashboard gives you access to all of your domain's settings, including its:
How do I manage my Squarespace account?
You can manage your Squarespace account from your account dashboard. You can take basic account actions in your dashboard including:
- Changing your account email or password
- Enabling two-factor authentication
- Updating notifications to manage your email preferences
To learn more about managing your Squarespace account, visit Managing your Squarespace account. To learn more about your account dashboard, visit Your account dashboard.
How does billing work for Squarespace domains?
When your domain moved from Google to Squarespace, your billing information migrated along with it. Keep in mind:
- Domain subscriptions auto-renew annually. If you had multiple years left on your domain's registration with Google, your domain will renew on its original renewal date. After we renew the domain and start charging Squarespace pricing for it, you can add more years to the registration.
- You'll receive an email 15 days before the renewal date letting you know you'll soon be charged for your domain. If you don't want your domain to renew automatically, you can disable auto-renew.
To learn more about how billing works for Squarespace domains, visit Squarespace domains billing FAQ.
Tax exemptions
If your Google Domains subscription had a sales tax exemption, it does not automatically apply to your Squarespace Domain subscription. You will need to request a sales tax exemption from Squarespace, which you can do by following the steps in these guides:
- US Sales tax and Squarespace billing
- Canadian tax and Squarespace billing
- VAT and Squarespace billing
- GST and Squarespace billing
How do I update the owner of my domain?
How you change the owner of your domain depends on if your domain shares its billing and permission settings with a Squarespace website.
If your domain doesn't share billing and permission settings with a Squarespace website
To update the owner of the domain, move it to a paid site and change the ownership of the site.
If you don't have a paid site or don't want to take that action, then follow these steps:
- Create a new trial site under the same account as your domain.
- Add payment information to your new trial site. You don't have to upgrade the site when the free trial expires, and the site won't automatically upgrade. You can manage your domain through your domains dashboard indefinitely even after the trial expires.
- Contact us for help moving your domain to the trial. In your message, include the name of your domain and your trial site's URL (also called its built-in domain).
- After we respond with a confirmation that we successfully moved your domain, invite the future owner as a contributor to the site.
- Open the Permissions & Ownership panel.
- Click the current site owner's name under Owner.
- Click Transfer ownership.
- In the pop-up message, verify your account by logging in, then select the new owner from the drop-down menu.
- Click Continue, then click Confirm.
- Have the new owner update the domain contact information to their information.
- If your domain previously directed to a non-Squarespace site, forward or point it to that site again.
Note: Squarespace trial sites are private by default, and can only be accessed by site owners and contributors. If visitors visit your custom domain while it's attached to a trial site, they'll see an owner login screen.
If you encounter error messages or experience issues taking these steps, please contact us.
If your domain shares billing and permission settings with a Squarespace website
If you're the owner of your Squarespace site and domain, you can transfer ownership of the site and domain to another contributor on your site. To learn more about adding a contributor and changing the owner of your site and domain, visit Changing site ownership.
Why did my domain's connection to my site break?
If your domain used a verification record to point to a non-Squarespace website, you may need to add a new verification record to your domain. Failing to re-verify after your domain moves to Squarespace may break your domain's connection to your site. If your domain's connection to your site broke after your domain moved to Squarespace, we recommend confirming with your website host if you need to re-verify the domain.
You can add new DNS records to your domain from your domains dashboard. To learn more about adding DNS records to your domain, visit Adding custom DNS records to your Squarespace-managed domain.
FAQ
Will the cost of my domain change?
As of September 7, 2024 all migrated domains renew at our standard rates. To find a domain's price, you can search for it on our domain name search page or in your domains dashboard.
Do I need to buy additional subscriptions?
No, you don't need to buy a website subscription or any other services with Squarespace to use Squarespace Domains. Squarespace Domains is an independent domain registrar separate from Squarespace, and you won't be required to use other services from Squarespace besides domain management.
Having a domain with Squarespace doesn't mean you have a Squarespace website. You can continue using any website provider of your choice, though you're always welcome to start a website with Squarespace or move your existing site to Squarespace.
Will my domain keep all the time remaining on its registration?
Yes, when your domain transitioned from Google to Squarespace, it kept all the time remaining on its registration.
I had contributor email addresses associated with my domain in Google. Will these contributors still have access to my domain?
When your domain migrated, Google sent a notification email to:
- The email address associated with the Google Domains account where you managed the domain
- Any contributor email addresses associated with the domain
- The email addresses listed as the Admin, Tech, and Billing contacts on the domain
Squarespace considers the last person responsible for payment on the domain to be the owner of the domain. When your domain migrated, we gave the domain owner domain owner permissions, while contributors were given domain manager permissions. To learn more about these permissions, visit Managing domain permissions.
Did my domain lock after it moved to Squarespace?
No, your domain doesn't have a 60 day domain lock. You can transfer the domain to another provider at any time.
Do my other Google services still work?
Yes, your existing Google services, like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Ads will continue to work with no interruption to service
Note: We automatically added a CNAME record to your domain’s DNS settings when your domain migrated from Google to Squarespace. It contains a unique code in front of the URL .googlehosted.com. This record connects all of your Google services associated with your domain. Deleting the record could interfere with your domain’s connection to Google services.
Did my domain forwarding or email forwarding rules remain intact when my domain moved?
Squarespace offers free domain and email forwarding for all Squarespace-managed domains. Your domain and email forwards will continue to work after your domain moves to Squarespace if:
- Your domain uses Google's default nameservers and you're using Google's built-in domain forwarding or email forwarding services.
- Your domain uses custom nameservers and you're using third-party (non-Google) domain or email forwarding services.
Your domain and email forwards stopped working after your domain moved to Squarespace if:
- Your domain uses custom nameservers and you're using Google's built-in domain forwarding or email forwarding services.
Update your DNS records to continue forwarding your domain or email
If your domain or email forwards are at risk, you'll receive an email from us when your domain migrates letting you know that you need to take action. After you follow the steps below, the domain or email forwarding rules you initially set up through Google will continue working.
The domain forwarding rules you initially created through Google will migrate along with your domain. For those rules to continue working, you'll need to add some DNS records to your domain to point your domain to Squarespace.
- Open your domains dashboard.
- Click your domain name.
- Click Website, then scroll down to the Domain forwarding section.
- You'll see an Action required banner stating you must update your DNS records at your DNS provider for domain forwarding to work.
- Click Review instructions to view the CNAME and A records you'll be adding to your domain.
- In a new tab, log into the account you have with your nameserver provider.
- Find where to manage your domain's DNS settings. Depending on your provider, the settings for managing your domain's DNS records may be called DNS, Advanced DNS Records, Manage Domains, or something similar.
- Remove any existing A or AAAA records that have @ as their host name.
- Add the DNS records you viewed in Step 5. You'll need to add a CNAME record for each subdomain on which you've set up a forwarding rule, along with one A record. If you need help adding DNS records, reach out to your nameserver provider using our suggested language, below.
- It can take anywhere between 24 and 72 hours for the records to update. When your records are fully updated, the Action required banner will disappear.
The email forwarding rules you initially created through Google will migrate along with your domain. For those rules to work, you'll need to add some DNS records to your domain, wait 24 hours, then remove and edit some DNS records.
- Open your domains dashboard.
- Click your domain name.
- Click Email, then scroll down to the Email forwarding section.
- You'll see an Action required banner stating you must update your DNS records at your DNS provider for email forwarding to work.
- Click Review instructions to view the two MX and two TXT records you'll need to add to your domain. These records are specific to this domain. If you have other domains, you'll need to go through these steps for those domains separately.
- In a new tab, log into the account you have with your nameserver provider.
- Find where to manage your domain's DNS settings. Depending on your provider, the settings for managing your domain's DNS records may be called DNS, Advanced DNS Records, Manage Domains, or something similar.
- Add the DNS records you viewed in Step 5. If you need help adding DNS records, reach out to your nameserver provider using our suggested language, below.
- Check to see if your domain has any Google-specific MX records. These records will have MX under Record type, and will point to something like aspmx1.mx.google.com. If your domain doesn't have any Google-specific MX records, you can stop here. Your domain forwarding rules are set up.
- If your domain does have Google-specific MX records, wait 24 hours, then move on to complete steps 11-13.
- Log back into the account you have with your nameserver provider and return to where you manage your domain's DNS records.
- Delete your Google-specific MX records.
- You added two new MX records to your domain in Step 5 of this process that point to mxa.mailgun.org and mxb.mailgun.org. Change the value in the Priority fields of these two records to 10.
- If your provider doesn't allow you to change the priority of existing records, remove the two new records, then re-add them with the same host, type, and data values, but with a priority of 10.
It can take anywhere between 24 and 72 hours for DNS records to update after you add or change them. When your records update, the Action required banner will disappear from your Email panel, and your email forwarding rules will be fully set up.
Request help from your nameserver provider
For help editing DNS records on a domain that uses custom nameservers, we recommend contacting your nameserver provider. They're more familiar with how their service works and can look into your domain setup directly.
For help adding new records, take a screenshot of the required records you reviewed in Step 5 in the sections above, and ask your nameserver provider for help directly with a message like this:
I'd like to add the following records to the DNS settings of my domain, [enter your domain here]. Can you help me with this process? Here are the records I need to add: [Insert screenshot here]
For help removing and updating records, ask your nameserver provider for help with a message like this:
I'd like to delete some records and edit some records in the DNS setting of my domain, [enter your domain here]. Can you help me with this process? I need to delete all of the Google-specific MX records, and then I'll need to edit the Priority of the two Mailgun MX records to 10.
Does Squarespace support dynamic DNS (DDNS)?
No, Squarespace doesn't support dynamic DNS. After your domain migrates, any active DDNS records will remain as A or AAAA records pointing to the last IP addresses provided prior to migration, but they'll no longer update automatically.
Does Squarespace support ACME TLS/SSL certificates?
No, Squarespace doesn't support ACME TLS/SSL certificates. Active SSL certificates will continue to work until they expire, but new certificates won't be issued following your domain’s migration.
Can I use my migrated Google domain with my Squarespace 5 site?
No, you can’t use a migrated Google domain with a Squarespace 5 website. To use your domain, you can move your Squarespace 5 site to Squarespace 7, our most current version. To determine which plan you have, visit Checking your billing subscriptions.
More help
To learn more about Squarespace domains, the purchase agreement, or the migration process, explore these other resources:
- About the Squarespace purchase of Google Domains registration
- Squarespace Domains FAQ
- Squarespace domains overview
To learn about what we currently offer with Squarespace Domains, browse through our domains guides.