Update:As of August 2026, this issue is still present.
I was creating a Google Workspace account for my company, as everyone knows, it’s a pretty straightforward sign-up process, until I’m hit with a weird, confusing error when I type my domain name:
“Enter a valid domain name instead of an email provider”
Huh? An email provider? What does this mean?
I thought maybe my domain was previously used as an email provider, so I look up the history of the domain, but nope, that’s not it.
I look up the error and find no official documentation by Google. However, I see that I’m not the only one to have come across it,
there are a few community threads posted by people asking for help.
Believe it or not,one of those threadswas by the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy; they were getting the same error for their domain. And of course, the so-called “experts” of the community provide the most useless response as always:
Left with no solution, I had to contact Google Workspace support. After being asked by multiple agents“Have you tried to create this to another browser?”, when I had already explained to them that I did, they transferred me to their high-level support specialist, Karen, who again asked me to try to sign up using another device, and I told her, again, that I have tried.
Then she asked me to record a video and wait for their product engineers to review it, and I did, and a few hours later I get an email:
Ok, I give it a try, and nope, the issue still persists.
One week later, I receive another email:
So let me get this right: they are suggesting that I use another domain for my company because their system WRONGLY flagged my legitimate domain, and they don’t even know exactly why.