Google South Africa down after failing to renew local domain

Users who have tried to access the search engine have received error messages since early on Friday morning.

JOHANNESBURG - Google South Africa is down after the company failed to renew its local domain.

Users who have tried to access the search engine have received error messages since early on Friday morning.

Industry experts believe the lack of oversight at the tech giant is the cause of the error.

Editor-in-chief at Stuff Magazine Toby Shapshak told Eyewitness News the company's downtime would have a ripple effect on other businesses.

South Africans struggling to surf the net on Friday morning have Google to blame after the company failed to pay its annual subscription fee.

Users on social media raised the flag, claiming attempts to use the search engine were unsuccessful.

is the google search engine down? or is it just on safari? or is it just me?

— Jamila (‎جميلة) 🇵🇸 (@jxmilaaa) June 30, 2022

Is google down or is it my phone?

— Zoe (@madamzoe) July 1, 2022

Google SA forgetting to renew their domain name is the most South African thing I’ve heard.

— Jen and Tonic (@JennaJayLange) July 1, 2022

Shapshak said the domain expired last week Saturday.

It's only expected back up once the company pays a small fee, which according to Shapshak is less than R100.

He described the lack of foresight as a strategic fail: “The fact that it hasn't renewed and that no one knew about it and it's come to the point that you can’t google or use google.co.za is mindboggling. It's the kind of thing you expect a loss cop, Eskom engineers or technicians to do wrong, not one of the world's wealthiest, high-tech companies ever.”

Google, which generates a bulk of its revenue from advertising, is expected to lose some big business in the meantime.

This article first appeared on EWN : Google South Africa down after failing to renew local domain

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