Why does Google want to be a domain name registrar? The New York Times gives as good an explanation as any…to more quickly update it’s search registry, elminate well optimized but otherwise worthless pages that just have ads at expired domains, and to keep it’s free search engine results as relevant as possible. Or is there something more insidious? I’ll leave that to the “Google as Antichrist” conspiracy theorists.
When a domain expires and changes hands, Mr. Fausett said, Google can now more easily find, scan and index the new site, so it does not mistakenly point searchers to a site with irrelevant content, or place advertisers on sites with content that does not match their products or services.
That alone could profoundly affect the domain name market, which has rebounded partly because of another Google service, AdSense. Through AdSense, Google pays publishers to display text ads related to a site’s content. Speculators often buy the expiring domains of even marginally popular Web sites and replace the site’s content. But because the practice diminishes the usefulness of Google’s search engine, the company has long sought ways to curb it.
Google’s continuing refinement of its search technology underscores the intensifying competition in that market, which has carried Internet advertising back to life in recent years. MSN, Yahoo and others have seen Google parlay popular search technology into a dominant business by selling text ads to marketers whenever consumers search for words related to a business.
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