Ask HN: What's going on with Google's WHOIS record?

1 points by iLoch 12y ago ↗ HN

I just entered `whois google.com` into Terminal, and it produced this:

    GOOGLE.COM.AFRICANBATS.ORG
    GOOGLE.COM.AR
    GOOGLE.COM.ARTVISUALRIO.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.AU
    GOOGLE.COM.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.BR
    GOOGLE.COM.CN
    GOOGLE.COM.CO
    GOOGLE.COM.DO
    GOOGLE.COM.HACKED.BY.JAPTRON.ES
    GOOGLE.COM.HAS.LESS.FREE.PORN.IN.ITS.SEARCH.ENGINE.THAN.SECZY.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.HK
    GOOGLE.COM.IS.APPROVED.BY.NUMEA.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.IS.HOSTED.ON.PROFITHOSTING.NET
    GOOGLE.COM.IS.NOT.HOSTED.BY.ACTIVEDOMAINDNS.NET
    GOOGLE.COM.LASERPIPE.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.LOLOLOLOLOL.SHTHEAD.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.MX
    GOOGLE.COM.MY
    GOOGLE.COM.NS1.CHALESHGAR.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.NS2.CHALESHGAR.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.PE
    GOOGLE.COM.PK
    GOOGLE.COM.SA
    GOOGLE.COM.SHQIPERIA.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.SOUTHBEACHNEEDLEARTISTRY.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.SPAMMING.IS.UNETHICAL.PLEASE.STOP.THEM.HUAXUEERBAN.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.SPROSIUYANDEKSA.RU
    GOOGLE.COM.SUCKS.FIND.CRACKZ.WITH.SEARCH.GULLI.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.TR
    GOOGLE.COM.TW
    GOOGLE.COM.UA
    GOOGLE.COM.UY
    GOOGLE.COM.VABDAYOFF.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.VN
    GOOGLE.COM.WORDT.DOOR.VEEL.WHTERS.GEBRUIKT.SERVERTJE.NET
    GOOGLE.COM.YUCEHOCA.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.YUCEKIRBAC.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.ZNAET.PRODOMEN.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.ZOMBIED.AND.HACKED.BY.WWW.WEB-HACK.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.GET.ONE.MILLION.DOLLARS.AT.WWW.UNIMUNDI.COM
    GOOGLE.COM.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.HAVENDATA.COM
    GOOGLE.COMMAS2CHAPTERS.COM
    GOOGLE.COM

Anyone have an explanation?

5 comments

[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 12.8 ms ] thread

[deleted] 12y ago ↗

(comment deleted)

samgb 12y ago ↗

Those are subdomains. So for example if I owned the domain somedomain.com - I could create a subdomain called google.somedomain.com which is what you are seeing.

[dead] PythonDeveloper 12y ago ↗

It's using a substring search and returning all the registered subdomain matches, with the literal match as the last item.

try "whois =google.com" and read the last entry.

dekhn 12y ago ↗

Many of those look like prefixes, so I think you version of whois is looking up any name record that contains google.com, across all domain registries. Certainly, many of those don't seem to be google.com-owned entries, but rather misleading addresses designed to capture people who enter google.com but resolve to a non-google.com server.

dragonwriter 12y ago ↗

Most of that has nothing to do with Google's WHOIS record, it has to do with other people who have created domain names with "GOOGLE.COM" as a substring, specifically so that their own stuff will show up when you do "WHOIS GOOGLE.COM".