On Monday, Google Search underwent a massive global outage around 9:15 p.m. Eastern Time, with over 45,000 users flagging the issue on the website DownDetector.com. The Google Search outage resulted in search results failing to load due to server errors. Other services, like Google Maps and Gmail, were affected too.
User reports indicate Google is having problems since 9:12 PM EDT. https://t.co/MK35emuk7T RT if you're also having problems #Googledown
— Downdetector (@downdetector) August 9, 2022
The Google Search Global Outage Was Disrupting Search Request Services
Reports of the global outage started flowing into DownDetector, a website that monitors such service disruptions, around 6:11 p.m. PT. The Google Search outage peaked 30 minutes later before subsiding. It was experienced in dozens of nations, from Portugal to Pakistan. People who tried to use Google Search saw the following error message: “The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.”
Network intelligence company ThousandEyes Inc reported Google’s global outage was affecting at least 1,338 servers globally across more than 40 countries including the United States, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Israel, parts of South America, Europe, and Asia including China and Japan. Users took to Twitter to express their confusion, reverting to alternate search engines including Bing and DuckDuckGo to surf the web.
Never experienced a Google search outage before… ? pic.twitter.com/5hksKw7hJp
— Rachael Piotrowski (@RachaelPiotPR) August 9, 2022
How am I supposed to Google “Is Google down” when Google is down?!? #google
— Amber Kelsey (@AmberKelseyy) August 9, 2022
Google Worked Quickly to Fix the Issue
A spokesperson for the company said the team had “worked quickly” to address the Google Search outage and services were back running as normal. “We’re aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected availability of Google search and Maps,” they said. “We apologize for the inconvenience. We worked to quickly address the issue and our services are now back online.”
Read more: Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram Undergo an Outage Disrupting DMs and Feeds
