Google Search now supports Ethereum Name Service: details

Google, recently revealed to have a monopoly on internet search, has made a crypto-friendly decision amid the ongoing legal battle in the US and EU. According to a new update, Google has fully completed the integration of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) into Search. This feature has been in testing with select users for a while and has not yet been made live for Google’s global users. Former Google engineer Nick Johnson presented the concept of ENS to the Ethereum Foundation in April 2016, after which the first wave of ENS names were minted in May 2017.

This development now makes it easier for people to search for any name based on the ENS domain, denoted ‘.eth’.

ENS can be explained as a decentralized domain name protocol. These Ethereum-based name domains are used by crypto users who want to simplify complicated Ethereum wallet addresses to make them human-readable. Otherwise, crypto wallet addresses usually consist of a bunch of random alphabets and numbers that are not only difficult to remember in order, but also claim that these addresses are only machine readable.

Nalin Basu, product manager for Web3 at Google, was the first to confirm the development of X and explain its usefulness.

“You all requested @ensdomains integration, and it’s live. You can search for any .eth name and find the right balance in Google Search! Kudos to the search team for fully rolling this out!” Basu posted on October 9.

Around July 2022, ENS addresses emerged as one of the most popular liquid assets traded on virtual asset marketplaces. Typically, easier ENS domains like ‘xyz.eth’ tend to be more valuable than others like ‘asd1as.eth’.

In the same year, Google did the same reportedly first introduced this ENS feature to let Ethereum wallet holders track their Ether balance directly through search results.

Nike’s Web3 arm called ‘RTFKT’ and Puma are among the global brands that have purchased ENS domains in the past.