A few weeks ago I finished a small website job where the challenge wasn’t to make a new site but instead to do away with the existing website.

In this Covid-19 pandemic many small businesses are having to call it quits. That was the story of this job. The business was not making money and needed to conserve cash and wind down operations. They didn’t need the website and didn’t want to pay for another year of hosting and maintenance.

The website and the domain name in question were hosted at Bluehost. For whatever reason the owner wanted to sever all relations with Bluehost. So, the domain name needed to be transfered. Cost was also a consideration.

Moving domains names around can be pretty technical. I was pleasantly surprised how easy the process went this time. What I decided to do was transfer the domain to Google Domains, https://domains.google/, and then set up a Google My Business account, https://www.google.com/business/, for the customer’s business. Releasing the domain for transfer on the Bluehost end was a little complicated, but they did have helpful information that explained the process. On the Google Domains end the process simply could not have been easier. Google My Business is intended to be an end user product. No technical skills required. Infact, once the domain name was transferred to Google, linking it to the Google My Business account was as simple as clicking a button. 

So, in the end the domain name ends up in the owner’s Google account and pointing at their Google My Business account. It really is a win win. The total cost is something like $12 a year and it’s the best domain parking situation I could possibly imagine for a business owner who has ideas about starting over again someday. The process is so simple that a non-technical person should be able to handle the whole thing. Best of luck if you decide to give it a try.