Recent reports claim the Google.com search engine domain was temporarily accessed by Internet users in mainland China despite the fact that Google's services are completely blocked by the country's strict censorship protocols which is widely dubbed as "The Great Firewall."

According to South China Morning Post, Chinese Internet users were able to access Google's search engines services at around 11:30 P.M. on March 27 until around 1:15 A.M. on March 27 local time. Chinese users were able to use Google's search engine through the following domains: Google.com, Google.com.hk, Google.com.sg and Google.com.vn.

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Reports claim that other Google services such as Gmail and Photos were also temporarily accessible during the period. The temporary access to Google service had lead many Chinese Internet users to believe that China had finally ease up on its restrictions and censorship protocols. It was later reported that the access only lasted for about two hours and Google services were once again blocked.

According to CNBC, tech experts believe that Google was able to circumvent some of China's firewall protocols after the tech giant introduced a series of new IP servers in some Asian locations. Reports added that Chinese authorities were not notified of these new IP addresses and they were unable to block it.

Following the brief access period, Chinese users spread the news over several Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo. The news instantly went viral although no specific figure as to how many users were able to access Google was released.

Google China stopped its operation back in 2010 when it refused to impose censorship on its search results as demanded by the Chinese government. At around the same time, Google decided to transfer its operations from mainland China to Hong Kong when a group of hackers targeted some Gmail users over the issue of censorship.

In 2014, Google's email service was completely banned in the country but there are reports claiming that some users can still bypass the firewall by using third party email apps such as Microsoft Outlook. Google's video sharing service YouTube along with online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter had been blocked in China for several years now.