Google.co.za is down
Google appears to have failed to renew the registration for google.co.za, and South Africans trying to access the search engine through its local domain are receiving an error message.
Navigating to Google.com still works as normal.
Domains are renewed annually, with some registrars allowing customers to renew their domains several years in advance.
Many also offer automatic renewal, allowing them to renew domains on clients’ behalf, provided they have a valid payment method on file at the time.
Google.co.za’s public records show that it was first registered on 25 June 2001 at 22:38 South Africa time.
MarkMonitor is the registrar on record for the domain, and the registrar expiration date was at 22:38 on 25 June 2022.
The domain has been suspended and is pending deletion.
As the domain has not been deleted yet, Google should be able to reactivate it by paying MarkMonitor.
Industry sources with knowledge of South Africa’s domain registration systems confirmed that this interpretation of the public data was the most likely explanation.
MyBroadband contacted Google for comment, but it could not immediately provide feedback.
Update: Google provided a statement at 12:06 on Friday, 1 July.
“Google is aware of an issue affecting its google.co.za domain name and is taking steps to reinstate it. In the meantime, the google.com domain remains fully functional and we encourage South African users to make use of this URL instead.”
Loading ...