Reports are coming in from Germany that Google.de was down “for many hours” yesterday, and has now gone live again. We’re trying to confirm the reason, but it appears to be because Google forgot to renew the Google.de domain name. It expired and someone registered it. While the site was down the site showed a standard domain name registrar parked page (probably including Google Ads).
Domain name management can be tricky - email renewal notices can often get lost because employees have left the company. A number of registrars specialize in handling large company domain names to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Google uses one of those services, MarkMonitor, for at least its Google.com domain name. If Mark Monitor was also managing their .de domain name it is a serious black mark on their record.
I want to stress that this is an unconfirmed story at this point. If anyone has any additional information, please pass it on. A screen shot of the site when it was down would be ideal.
I can’t reproduce the forward though.
sorry?
The domain name was reportedly forwarded to Goneo.de, but I can’t reproduce it.
A simple whois on google.de shows that it was last changed today. MarkMonitor is also showed as a Zone Contact.
Of course this gives no real clue on what/if something happened, but it was changed…
Whois-info:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/.....=google.de
In Germany is the strange thing, when you want to move with your domain, you write to denic.de. They then write to your olh host. But if the host does not answer in five days it means “Yes”. So the host og google germany forgott to say “No” to the denic:) It ist strange but the rules here in germany are really like this.
I have paid to monitor a site coming up for renewal, but would not have thought Google would be one. This could put the spotlight on the merky world of domain backordering and sniping.
How did the site that parked the domain give in so easily…I would have expected an attempt to make a fortune out of this situation. Or is it possible?
You can assume this as confirmed. Several german tech sites reported it. The domain was transfered to the hoster goneo.de because a domain change request wasn’t denied by Google.
I find this crazy. How can Google with so many domains in its control, not have a robust system of renewals? How can the registrar having Google as a client, not alert Google on phone, in case email did not work?Glaaaaring.
Because you asked for a screenshot: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt.....11,00.html - there were no contents on the page, only goneo’s placeholder page.
Several German news sites report that this was an attempt to grab the site. Here is a screenshot of the site, while it was currently unavailable:
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0701/G.....90&s=1
I wish I had been in line and bought google.de before anyone else. smaran@google.de - possibly my dream e-mail ID.
Es wäre ganz cool eine Google.de Adresse zu haben. Wenn jemand von Google Deutschland mir eine geben willst…
This was not a renewal problem! It´s approximately like “soeren onez” said.
I read it at you JoJo so id had to be right;)
heres heises report: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/84080
JoJo, as you say it was a grabbing attempt. Can domain grabbing be as simple as blinking an eye….
Marissa Mayer admitted today at the Burda DLD conference that indeed the domain registration expired and between the hours of 1am and 3am today while she was in Munich, she and several others at Google tracked down the new owner and got him to give up the domain registration (he says it was inadvertent).
It is very strange. How Google can forget to renew the domain and above that, not responded to the request.
Really a mistake on Google’s behalf and hence the person who registered the domain has right to charge them as much as s/he wants.
Here is a screenshot of how Google.de looked when down
http://scr3.golem.de/?d=0701/G.....90&s=1
One of Australia’s biggest corporates is Fairfax. They own Australia’s most popular newspapers and magazines and one of the biggest Australian web sites.
Their flagship is the Sydney Morning Herald and the online version is at smh.com.au, one of Australia’s most popular sites.
BUT………………………
Someone at Fairfax forgot to register SydneyMorningHerald.com. As a result someone with more money (to spend on lawyers that is) than sense did register it as an adsense type site, with I might add a fair amount of success.
I don’t know if Fairfax execs know about it yet (although I do know that a lot of their techs subscribe to this site) but when they find out watch the proverbial hit the fan.
http://dLook.com.au
The Register seems to have a good reason for it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....e_germany/
Domain pirates are scumbags.
Google is a startup company that still suffers from “growth pain”…
Hehe, Google users are less friendly than those of Microsoft ?
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-234907.html
The Register has in their “Update” the true story. Btw the same happened with ebay.de in 2004 … maybe this time Denic and the hosting companies are learning something and change their system.
But if I try to access google.de it works. Did they solve the problem?
Hi, It looks like that Google solved this domain issue.
The Google.de points to the german website of Google again.
I know how much its confusing when you own a lot of domains/sites, i once lost a valuble domain (with a google PR 6) to a squatter.
Google.de works again. That’s truley great.
this is a possibility but someone could have pirated the address. They stopped the exchange server from renewing the email and wam bam the site goes up for sale. I would have liked to buy a site like that but everyone tries buying a site like that, it’s Google. Google.anything is worth quite a bit of money. Google has it back so that’s all that matters.
I noticed that google.co.in was down and showing blank page. It is up now.
Again, the author said the reason the site went down is not confirmed. I’m sure Google will release something shortly explaining the situation, although
Google doesn’t like to admit its faults. I remember Microsoft did these years ago with their Hotmail account, and a savvy user paid the renewal fee so he could check his e-mail.
#31: google.co.in ? Are they now trying to make their own currency?
Seems like this was a redirection “hack” (not really a hack but for the lack of a better term) done intentionally by someone…
Quoted from zone-h.org
“On the funny side, the same problem happened to Google in its German version which yesterday evening was redirected to a different page (different owner actually). In this case (automatic German/English translation) the trick was a bogus domain transfer request that a German provider accepted without explicit authorization from Google Inc. (silence-consense).”
With regard to this posting, it does appear that the Google.de website did go down temporarily last evening, however, a quick search of the Whois reveals that the domain name did not expire as you had initially reported. Based upon the various coverage of the incident, the following article appearing on Heise Online detailing a possible hijacking appears to be the most probable cause for the temporary outage, see http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/84136. Based upon my check of the Google.de website early this morning, the problem appears to have been resolved promptly.
Google should register all of their domains for 10 years ahead of time, and extend them again before the last year even begins; following a cash-flow reduction strategy of this magnitude at the risk of your brand and technical credibility is not a value-maximizing proposition.
Google.de going down is big. It may be a strategic move.
-Amit
http://www.ipatrons.com
google.de is working. What are you all talking about?
This domain would not have expired, then been reacquired and, consequently, everyone in the universe had been able to view the switchover across a 2 hour period of time. DNS takes time to propagate around the internet - a switch like this that was “turned on” and then “turned off” again 2 hours later very very likely was a little side hacking job by some wacko.
DNS does not work that fast.
It’s like the government - takes its sweet time to get around to what it needs to in order to make the people happy.
Hi Folks - I was at the DLD Conference in munich http://dld-conference.com/ and today, Marissa Mayr VP of google said something about the .de domain in the morning panel session. The page was down from 1-3 am . a young german guy had registered the domain without knowing it. They called the guy and he agreed to give the domain back to google - but Marissa said nothing about the amount of money they’ve paid him or if they paid him at all. the conference was really great - regards from germany
Screenshots here - it was pretty funny.
This story is true. i was at a conference in munich at a panel with Marissa Mayer from Google (employee #20) and she brought this up. Pretty embarrasing.
Hehehe,
I guess even the big boys also make some mistakes eh?
Whatever happened to the guy who snatched up the domain name. He should have made a fortune from it.
Didn’t Microsoft let this happen with hotmail.com a few years back? Google is Microsoft 2.0.
Dont think so …does work fine
Just goes to show even the big boys loose out sometimes!!
Yee what about that guy, he should be know on Ibiza drinking beer
I would like to read about this guy more, but probably if he takes money he can’t speak about it.
I wonder if the puchaser made anything from it/
The purchaser is in a pound-me-in-the-ass prison now.
This is almost unbelievable. A 30 billion dollar company cannot manage their domain names