Domain Connect — Product Edition: DNS Providers¶
Version: 1.0 | Last updated: October 2026
Author: Pawel Kowalik, Co-Author of Domain Connect specification
Sources: IETF draft-ietf-dconn-domainconnect-04 (Oct 2026), stats.domainconnect.org, Domain Connect Support Stats (Beta), CENTR Domain Renewal Study 2024 (Oct 2024), ROW 2025 presentation (Sep 2025), CENTR Jamboree 2025 presentation (May 2025)
About This Edition¶
This edition is for product managers at DNS providers and registrars who need to decide whether to implement Domain Connect — and then convince their team, their engineering leads and their CEO.
It answers four questions in order:
- Why should we do this? — the problem, the value, and how to size it for your business
- What exactly would we build? — the components, phases, team and ongoing operations
- What could go wrong? — security, liability, operational risk and the objections you will hear
- How do I get a yes? — a 60-second pitch, a one-page executive brief and how to tailor the message per audience
You do not need to read the protocol specification to use this edition. Where technical depth helps a decision, the pages link to the relevant section.
Implementing it yourself or handing over to engineering? See the Implementers Edition. Working on the Service Provider side? See the Product Edition: Service Providers.
The One-Paragraph Summary¶
Your customers register domains to connect them to something — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Shopify, a website builder. Today that connection is a manual DNS task that about half of them fail, and the failure lands in your support queue and, eventually, in your renewal numbers: unused domains renew at ~70%, domains with real content at ~90%. Domain Connect lets the service provider hand the job to you: they publish a DNS template, you vet and deploy it, and your customer approves the change on your own consent screen in a few seconds. You build the capability once — discovery, a consent flow, a template engine — and gain access to 2,207 ready-made templates from 1,436 service providers without negotiating a single bilateral integration. 294 DNS providers, covering ~42% of scanned domains, already run it in production, and the protocol is on the IETF Standards Track.
Reading Paths¶
| You have… | Read |
|---|---|
| 15 minutes before a meeting | Executive Brief |
| One hour to form your own opinion | Business Case → Scope of Work → Risks & Objections |
| An afternoon to prepare a proposal | All four product pages, then How It Works, Security Model and Adoption & Ecosystem |
| A hand-over to engineering | Getting Started: DNS Provider and the Implementers Edition |
Key Numbers for Your Slides¶
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Templates ready to deploy | 2,207 |
| Service providers with templates | 1,436 |
| DNS providers live | 294 (incl. GoDaddy, IONOS, Cloudflare, Squarespace Domains, WordPress.com, Plesk) |
| Share of scanned domains on supporting DNS providers | ~42% (September 2026) |
| Users who fail manual DNS setup (Microsoft 365) | ~50% |
| DNS records needed for Microsoft 365 | 7–15 |
| Renewal rate: no content vs high content | ~70% vs ~90% |
| In production since | 2016 |
| IETF DCONN working group approved | October 2025 |
Ecosystem statistics from Domain Connect Support Stats (Beta) and stats.domainconnect.org (2026-10-29).
Document Map¶
| Document | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Business Case | Value levers, how to size the opportunity with your own data, KPIs |
| Scope of Work | Components, build-vs-reuse, phasing, team, ongoing operations |
| Risks & Objections | Answers for your CTO, CISO, legal, support and finance |
| Executive Brief | 60-second pitch, one-page brief, tailoring by audience, first steps after approval |
| 01 Problem & Context | Domain growth decline, DNS failure rates, the three-actor gap |
| 02 What Is Domain Connect | Definition, scope, what it is not |
| 03 How It Works | Flows, templates, discovery, consent |
| 05 Use Cases | What customers will connect, plus registrar-specific extended use cases |
| 06 Value by Audience | Value for registries, DNS providers, service providers, users |
| 07 Adoption & Ecosystem | Who is live, standardization timeline |
| 08 Security Model | Trust model, signing, vetting — for your security review |
| 12 Getting Started: DNS Provider | The step-by-step implementation guide your engineers will follow |
| Stories | First-person stories from a DNS provider CEO, PM and support manager |