Google will not load on my new MacbookPro but why?

Question

I'm going to make this as clear as possible, but may miss something so bear with me.
I've owned an iPad and iPhone for a while but just yesterday purchased my first MacBook Pro which is the first apple computer I've owned. I'm still learning my way through the menus since I've been a PC user its a little different but rocket science. I'm relatively smart about these kinds of things, but when offering up suggestions it would help to tell me how to get to certain menu options as I'm still finding my way around.
THE ISSUE:
When I use Safari, I can visit whatever website I want but for some reason google won't load. Safari comes with the search bar at the top of the browser for easy searching, which brings up common suggestions (I thought came from google) and if I click one, it doesn't load the results. Furthermore I cannot get www.google.com or any variation of that link including 8.8.8.8 to load the google webpage. It just WONT LOAD. Every other site I've tried to visit, however, loads quickly and without any problem.
I've never had any sort of problem with google on any other computer, ipad or iphone in my home and my network is set up to allow it. The only related pages I've found on the internet suggest people are using PeerGuardian or some software I have not had the time to install as I just got the computer, theres' nothing on it that didn't come on it shy of a few photos.
After tinkering with the ping menu,  I came to realize this problem is intermittent. I first got 'domain cannot be verified' as a result, then later it pings google, and i can visit the site, but only for a few seconds before it goes out again. Usually google works only long enough to see results but upon clicking any of them it stops working again and wont load.
Before I could finish this google started working properly, and now discissions.apple.com won't load any threads at all, where it used to load them all just fine. I'm writing this from my PC because the oh so awesome macbook pro is moody about what sites it wants to load and when it wants to load them.
This is so random I don't even know how to begin trouble shooting this without assuming its my network, but my network is totally fine its never had a problem before and ive been on it with multiple machines for years.

Answer 1

I don't think it's your network ...
Try this...
From the Safari menu bar top of your screen click Safari > Preferences then select the Privacy tab.
Click:  Remove All Website Data
Quit then relaunch Safari to test. If it was a cookies issue, that may help.
And in case you aren't aware, when you have trouble with sites loading, trying emptying the Safari cache.
Back to the menu bar, click Safari > Empty Cache
Or Command + Option + E on your keyboard.
As for Peer Guardian. Best to avoid third party firewall blockers.
Your Firewall settings are located in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall
Very important to keep your system software up to date. Back to System Preferences > Software Update > Scheduled Check
Select:  Check for updates.  Best to select Daily from the pop up menu. Then select:  Download updates automatically.
You'll see a dialog box on the Desktop when there are updates available to be installed.
These support links may come in handy ..
Apple - Find Out How - Mac Basics
Apple - Support - Switch 101
Apple product tutorials