Perplexity's missing India domain sends users to Google Gemini.

Perplexity, one of India's most popular AI chatbots, has become the centre of an unexpected domain quirk. Users found that typing Perplexity.in into their browsers takes them straight to Google's Gemini, which is a direct competitor.  The redirect has led to speculation that Google may have taken advantage of Perplexity's failure to get the India-specific domain, possibly profiting from a simple mistake.

But the situation is more complicated than that.  Perplexity has never bought country-specific domains and mostly works through Perplexity.ai and Perplexity.com.  Even though the company is based in San Francisco, it does not own domains in the UK (.uk), Germany (.de), or even the US (.us).  So, its absence from the Indian domain registry may be due to internal brand policy rather than carelessness.

There is also no proof that Google has bought the Perplexity.in domain.  Anyone can buy the domain for as little as Rs 499, and they can send it to Gemini or any other website they want.  People like this, called cybersquatters, often buy domains in the hopes of using them to make money in the future.

People have noticed the timing, though.  Recently, Perplexity has increased its presence in India, most notably by teaming up with Airtel to offer its users Perplexity Pro services.  This unexpected redirect now makes the company's growth plans look bad.

We don't know if Perplexity will buy the Perplexity.in domain, but for now, the unexpected redirect keeps sending Indian users to Google's competitor AI service.