Google's Mystery Domain, IPv6 Traffic Spike

Google (GOOG) drives an enormous amount of traffic around the Internet - so much so that changes in its network gain attention. Here are several examples from this week.

First there's this from The Register: "Sometime in the middle of October, Google silently launched a new net domain - a barely-disguised doppelgänger to the familiar google.com - and according to the latest stats from the site watchers at Alexa, this mystery domain is now visited by nearly three per cent of all net users, making it the 44th most visited domain on the interwebs."

Separately, Network World notes that Google has "quietly turned on IPv6 support for its YouTube video streaming Web site, sending a spike of IPv6 traffic across the Internet that has continued from last Thursday until Monday. Industry observers say YouTube appeared to be supporting IPv6 in production mode, as opposed to running a test of the next-generation Internet protocol."