Why Google Went Offline Today and a Bit about How the Internet Works

On November 5th, 2012, Google experienced a limited outage due to route leakage caused by Moratel, an Indonesian ISP. The incident resulted in misrouting of traffic and impacted around 3-5% of the Internet's population. Route leakage occurs when routes are announced beyond their intended scope, causing traffic to be misdirected. In this case, it was likely due to a configuration error or trust model failing at Moratel. The issue was resolved after Moratel stopped announcing the incorrect routes and Google's services were restored within minutes. This event highlights the importance of network engineering teams monitoring routing and connectivity continuously to ensure optimal performance for websites.