I wrote this article just now, about a mirror I found in a Register.com subdomain. I would certainly love some discussions on this issue. If someone thinks the story is interesting and useful, please submit it to Digg.
it is so funny that some people actually use ping to solve hostnames and that is not a mirror, they just pointed a subdomain to 66.249.91.99, it is the same as going to 66.249.91.99 directly..no big deal
just do it the right way(nslookup/host) and you'll get more info which should clarify this: searchtheweb.register.com CNAME apps5.oingo.com apps5.oingo.com CNAME afd.l.google.com afd.l.google.com A 66.249.93.104 afd.l.google.com A 66.249.93.99 ping is for other purposes
if you go to that oingo.com you see "Google Acquires Applied Semantics" you ask on this forum if 2 companies have written agreement..which is actually funny..does it seem like here are a lot of people working on register or google and they are willing to give you such details? and even with or without google's permission, they are getting free traffic..