Revealed: why Google went down as quick as a slash

By David M Williams
Sunday, 01 February 2009 04:06

Home IT

Earlier today Google had a hiccup where it reported every search result as potentially malware. This continued for about an hour and brought the world's searching to its knees. Google has explained what caused this issue.

I put up my earlier story, "Google crashes; says all Internet is bad" in the midst of the calamity. Check it out for a screen grab of what I, and everyone else in the world, was seeing.

At that time there was no suggestion what had caused the problem. For most Internet users they were just mildly relieved to discover it wasn't in fact some weird new piece of malware they'd contracted but was in fact a genuine real-world Google issue.

Conspiracy theories abounded. Some online suggested Google had been "hacked." Others put forth the notion Google were stepping up their plans for world domination.

I took the considerably more plausible view a server somewhere had run out of memory or a process had died and a reboot was the solution.

Of course, given Google's massive server farms I was surprised to see the phenomena was world-wide and not just localised to a select few who happened to use the assumed faulty server.

We were all wrong; as conspiracy theorists ought to know the truth is out there. And indeed it is, Google's official blog now contains a post from Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience.

According to Mayer the whole thing came down to a single and simple user error on their part.

Google maintain a list of known malware sites and they update this via manual and automated means. It seems one poor Google tech - who I suspect now has to bring in donuts for the rest of the office - accidently added a single "/" to the list of bad sites, on a line all by its lonesome.

When Google's search results check for matches the solitary slash actually rings true for everything - every URL with a slash in it registered as malware according to this search term.

The solution wasn't to reboot anything, it was to take out that little one liner from the bad sites register.

It's amazing to think how much we all use Google. Given how it is the de facto homepage and pretty much the portal to the Internet for many a folk it's as if for one whole hour on planet Earth the Internet was down.

So that's the story! Today the Internet was down in the blink of an eye, as quick as a slash.

And the solution? Well, it brings new meaning to the phrase "going to take a slash."