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Jan. 22, 2007 at 5:45pm Eastern by Danny Sullivan
Google Germany Gone Kaput?
Reader Michiel Ouwerkerk just dropped an email to say that Google Germany has disappeared. Sure enough, when I go there, I get a holding page from what looks to be hosting company Goneo:
The message reads (umlauts and other German punctuation omitted, sorry!)
Fur diese domain burden keine inhalte hinterlegt
bitte schaen Sie zu einem spateren Zeitpunk nochmal vorbie
Roughly, it says there's nothing on the domain and to try again in a bit, I believe.
I'm in the UK and getting this. Someone I pinged over in London is not. Someone in the US I pinged also is not. So it might be localized and probably will be intermittent. I'll also check with Google on it.
Postscript Barry: Google Germany goes kaput at the Register (nice title), has word from a Google spokesperson but also from Goneo.
Goneo called us with the full story from its end. The google.de domain changed hand three times last night, a spokesman said.
A request to take over the domain was placed with Goneo about a week ago. The firm automatically placed a request with German domain registry DENIC (the equivalent of Nominet), which put the request to Google's German provider. The provider did not respond in the first instance, and ignored a second approach from DENIC.
According to procedure, DENIC then approved the request on Monday evening. Goneo became aware of the registration, and arranged with Google and DENIC to have it transferred back.
Unfortunately, somebody else had made an application to register it too, through another domain company, which had also been ignored, so it was transferred to them first.
Google finally took possession its German digs this morning.
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By Danny Sullivan
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Reader Comments
Same here, wonder what is up. I am in NY.
Google Germany looks normal in Portland, OR.
It seems to be OK now from here in the UK.
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January 22, 2007 6:28 PMI just went there now from Virginia, and the Google.de site is gone-o :)
I'm getting the same Goneo site from Los Angeles when I try to load google.de.
I'm in Germany. google.de is offline. It seems that google did not pay the bills. google is not longer owner of google.de. The national domain registry denic.de proofs it.
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January 22, 2007 6:48 PMYes, google.de is offline here (Germany) as well. The message in the blog post actually reads:
- there is no content for this domain
- please stop by later
It's working fine from here in Sydney.
It's probably working outside Germany, because the page is still in cache memory of local providers.
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January 22, 2007 7:15 PMIt's still not working - from the UK. If you check out denic.de and enter google at the top right you'll see who owns it now (click Akzeptieren to accept to see the result).
Working from Las Vegas, NV.
"No Content was deposited for this domain. Please come back at a later time and check again."
Hello to the other Carsten :)
Google is not the owner of the domain name
google.de anymore:
Try it out at denic.de:
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Fehler 502: Dienst zur Zeit nicht verfügbar
Bitte versuchen Sie es in einigen Minuten noch einmal.
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Sometimes you get this answer for the owner:
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Domaininhaber: favo
Adresse: Hellmundstr. 31
PLZ: 65183
Ort: Wiesbaden
Land: DE
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January 23, 2007 2:52 AMRumors are that it was a potential domain name hijack. A commentator at SER said;
"Two reliable sources here in Germany report that this was an attempt to grab the domain google.de. Apparently, the potential pirate filed for the transfer of the domain at DeNIC (German domain registration) pretending to be the owner of it. Funny story."
Wonder if Google will ever tell us the story. :)
I'm in the U.S. (near Boston) and am getting it.