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Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers
An anonymous reader writes "A new Google domain — 1e100.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name — is now the net's 44th most visited site. Google says the domain is used to 'identify servers' on its internal network, hinting that reverse DNS plays a role. The domain was registered in September and launched in October, about the same time Google unveiled Spanner, a new addition to its backend infrastructure designed to shift loads automatically among its data centers."
Or like we normal people like to say it, it is an invalid domain name.
>Could someone explain that one cause I really don't get it or see the nod.
After a long mescaline trip Eric Schmidt and Larry Page decided the company should be called LEE00 (pronounced lee-ooooo) and the l33t-speak domain 1e400.net was born.
After poor reception from investors and users alike a memo was written up asking all employees to suggest a new domain name. A young intern, who later committed suicide in a bizarre self decapitation with a chainsaw, suggested that 1 to the 400th power was actually a gogool. Schmidt and Page were impressed and after accepting how less fun it is to say gogool than "leeee-oooooo" decided to change the name. Because its difficult to trademark a real word, they just went with "google." 1e400.net is a nod to the good old leeee-ooooo days.
*actually its 1 to 100th power