As ther5e is confusion here YES it is an official Google store.

googlestore.com is Google's official US store where they sell merchandise. I am 99% sure (having read it on Google in the past) Merchandise Mania Ltd have the worldwide resale rights on merchandise (hence googlestore.com linking to google-store.com for map locales outside the US)

EDIT: dolt I was almost right. A bit of poking around and it looks like Merchandise Mania are like the Cafepress of the corporate world. So they provide the infrastructure, printing and shipping and Google just sets up the merchandise they want to sell :) makes sense I guess.

EDIT2: http://paulsmania.blogspot.com/

That is linked from the Merchandise Mania offical site (as a blog) and in the about section says: Merchandise Mania - an award winning Promotional Merchandise supplier based in Borehamwood in Hertfordshire. Their international client base includes Google, Bosch, McDonalds Restaurants and many many more.

:)

The googlestore.com links to google-store.com if we click anywhere on the map except the North American continent. So is the hyphenated site kind of official?

By the way clicking on Canada and America takes you to http://googlestore.com/home.asp.. notice the .asp in the end... while all other countries are pointing to google-store.com/index.php ... odd!

Google is likely outsourcing the operation of the store to 3rd parties. Makes sense, as it would probably be more trouble than it's worth for Google to sell the stuff themselves.

The Google about page (http://www.google.com/intl/en/about.html) links to googlestore.com, without the hyphen. The site is similar in appearance, but not the same; I would assume that the linked site is a fake.

i looked at the site without the hyphen and it took me to the one with hyphen?

Ah, interesting. It didn't do so for me, they appeared as different sites.

So, if Google links to googlestore.com, and googlestore.com links to google-store.com, then it must be a partnership.

http://googlestore.com/home.asp is the USA+Canada official Google store. Probably it runs an older shopping cart script written in MS asp.

http://google-store.com/index.php is the official Google store for the rest of the world . It uses osCommerce!

I wanted to buy Official Google merchandise (especially the Rubik's Cube and a few wearables). The only site which pops up in Google search is the link above. But I am skeptical. Is the Google Store official site by Google? Doesnt look like that. Also where can I buy official Google merchandise, online?

http://www.googlestore.com is the real address.

In the Q&A:

"Q. Help! I searched for ?????? on Google.com and cant find what Im looking for/get wrong results! A. Im afraid we can ONLY answer questions relating to the Google Store. Our friends at help@google.com will be happy to assist you in any other Google related enquiries."

Google would not use punctuation so gratuitously and miss apostrophes.

Looks official but they do not use the official Google checkout!! See http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/google-store-does-not-use...

It is official. When I did some (read: lots of) volunteer translation for Google years back, I got an email from Marissa Mayer asking me to pick out something from the store as a reward.

Anyone else notice the real google store at http://www.googlestore.com/home.asp

is using ASP.NET? MSoft wins again.

Actually it's probably classic ASP. ASP.NET uses the .aspx extension.

It seems they are banking on the brand Google, it really doesn't have anything that makes it look like a Google Inc. website... something's wrong!!

Registered to Merchandise Mania Ltd, Borehamwood, UK.

Its built in PHP and doesn't use nifty URL rewriting at all. Nope, can't be.

No. Check the WHOIS.