Google Buys Entire Alphabet

Google has bought the Alphabet.

Well, it hasn’t really, but close enough.

In the days that directly followed Google becoming a subsidiary of new parent company, Alphabet, and the unveiling of its new unique domain ABC.xyz, it also turns out that Google/Alphabet also bought up another web domain on the down-low.

In keeping with the .xyz alphabet theme,  it has transpired that Google also bought the abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com domain as well. Good luck typing that in on a qwerty keyboard. It just took me 3 attempts to get it right.

Just why Google decided they needed the 26 letter domain is anyone’s guess. But a spokesman for Google has been quoted as saying “We realized we missed a few letters in ABC.xyz, so we’re just being thorough.”

Hmmmn. Both myself and the internet at large beg to differ.

Argument invalid?

Google very rarely, if ever does anything on a whim. Mark Bergen of recode.net, postulated that the move may have been a preemptive strike to ensure that another corporation such as Microsoft, Twitter, or Apple couldn’t use an Alphabet related site for a spot one upmanship on their part.  That last statement is probably closer to the truth than anything else.

The original news that Google had bought up abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com, was brought to the attention of the internet by Domaininvesting.com. Google may have just been playing it smart. After Google announced their ABC.xyz purchase, there was a substantial rise in the acquisition of any and all alphabet and similar .xyz domain names. While that might not sound like a good idea, it’s actually really sensible. Similarly spelled domain names can benefit 3rd party sites in terms of increasing traffic to that site, and can also be used for at best, general mischievousness, and at worst all out full frontal malware attacks.

Google, Gogle, Googl, and Googlesucks.com

Google for instance doesn’t just own www.google.com. It also owns Googl.com, Gogle.com and over 18000 other domain names. This means that if people type in Gogle.com in their search bar, Google will redirect them to Google.com, and not some nefarious website that tries to steal your credit card information. Google has also made preemptive strikes against domain names that could potentially cause them embarrassment. For instance, they also own domain names such as Googlesucks.com

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com, was originally registered back in 1999, but appears to have been ‘parked,’ and not been in use for several years.

Money changed hands, but no-one knows  how much

There has been no definitive news or press as to just how much Google paid for the full 26 character alphabet domain name, but according to some websites, such as freevaluator.com, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com was worth a probable just under $3,000.

The acquisition of all alphabet related domain names has not all gone Google’s way however. The actual Alphabet.com domain belongs to German car manufacturer BMW, and it does not seem like BMW are in a hurry to disinvest themselves of it at any point in the near future.

The news about Google buying alphabet related domain names comes just days after emerged that one smart ex Google employee actually managed to be the proud owner of Google.com, albeit for only around a minute.