Google quietly added ENS to Search

Searching by Ethereum address has been possible for almost a year

by Macauley Peterson /
article-image

Sundry Photography/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Searching for an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain in Google now yields on-chain information about its holdings.

The new functionality in Google Search appears to have been introduced without a formal announcement, and without the knowledge or input from ENS developers, who expressed surprise on X Thursday.

Loading Tweet..

The search giant has displayed information about Ethereum addresses using their 40 character hexadecimal string since May 2023, but the addition of easily readable ENS addresses appears to be new.

The update has developers wondering about the future utility of ENS domains.

“So if Google is resolving ENS names now, then we are a single field away from them also displaying an affiliated URL as part of the result,” said Sean Murray of Debanked. “And if they do that, then you really could tell someone your .eth name and they could get to your website just through Google, easy.”

ENS has been steadily expanding integrations since launching way back in May 2017 as a project of the Ethereum Foundation.

Read more: ENS partners with GoDaddy to enable users to link wallets to domains

Currently, domains can only be registered on Ethereum mainnet, however, the system is designed to work with layer-2 networks as well, and can be implemented by dapp developers.

Registration and maintenance of domains incurs costly transaction fees, but managing ENS on a layer-2 will require protocol changes, according to ENS team member serenae.eth.

“It’ll take some significant changes at the core ENS protocol level to allow .eth registrations completely off-chain (on some layer-2), basically the ENS DAO would have to choose a [layer-2] to ‘enshrine’ and tightly couple the [layer-1] registry with,” they wrote on the ENS Discord.

Projects like Uniswap offer free subdomains — e.g. foo.uni.eth however these are not yet resolvable by Google.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Digital Asset Summit 2025

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

buy ticketslearn more

recent research

Research

by Research Team

news

article-image

Policy

Federal judge denies Ripple, SEC motion for indicative ruling

Judge Analisa Torres said the parties have not demonstrated that vacating her prior ruling is in the best interest of the public

by Casey Wagner /
article-image

Empire NewsletterOpinion

Why Kalshi’s new $2B valuation makes sense

Prediction markets have found a mainstream fit

by Katherine Ross /
article-image

The Breakdown

Permissionless IV, Day 2 takeaways

Money for enemies isn’t fun, but crypto can be

by Byron Gilliam /
article-image

Lightspeed NewsletterMarkets

Risk-on in Solana, even as ceasefire cools tensions

Onchain SOL perps wiped $31 million, outpacing CEX volumes two days in a row

by Jeff Albus /
article-image

Forward Guidance NewsletterPolicy

Powell says Fed will continue to monitor inflation before cutting rates

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Senators Wednesday that the timeline on lowering interest rates is up in the air

by Casey Wagner /
article-image

FinanceForward Guidance Newsletter

Newly tokenized Janus Henderson CLO strategy sees $1B inflow

Credit infrastructure DeFi protocol Grove makes allocation into a CLO segment “ripe for movement into DeFi”

by Ben Strack /