On a whim, he says he entered “Google.com” into the search box and lo-and-behold it showed up as “available”, and he was able to purchase the domain for a mere $12. To his surprise, Google processed the transaction, billed his Discover card, and added Google.com to his control panel.
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He made a decision to add it to his cart and check out. Instead of a gray sad face that indicates a domain has an owner, the green happy face showed it was available.
Ved said that he temporarily had access to Google’s Webmaster Tools and a few google.com registration info. “Additionally, I started receiving notifications, for when ownership changed (along with new owner details etc.) in the Google Search Console for websites (I will not name them) that are powered by Google Sites (which makes sense given that websites powered by Google Sites rest on the master domain Google.com)”.
A minute later, he received an order cancellation email from Google Domains.
Ved posted in LinkedIn that the scary part was he had access to the webmaster controls for a minute.
Google hasn’t commented on the story yet, though Ved claims he has spoken to the company about the incident. Would have been totally worth it for the bragging rights (“Oh yeah, I used to own google.com”) even without the refund …
While this might read like a ridiculous plot summary from a few frightful piece of nerd fiction, this series of events above, believe it or not, actually happened to former Googler Sanmay Ved earlier this week. A Google spokesperson said they are looking into the issue, but “aren’t now noticing anything unusual”.
This isn’t the first time Google has faced such domain-related problem.
However, soon after his venture into Google.com ownership began it came to a close.
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It’s more likely that there was a few sort of bug in Google Domains, than Google simply “forgetting” to re-register what is the most famous domain name in the world. And just like that, in the blink of an eye, the transaction goes through and the vaunted and highly valuable Google domain is in your possession. He’s been a huge fan of the company since he worked there for five-and-a-half years before leaving to get his MBA.
