Google apologizes for a global services outage

Updated on: 09 August 2022

Vilius Petkauskas
Deputy Editor

Image by Reuters, Dado Ruvic.

The software giant has apologized for a technical issue that took down Google and several other services such as Gmail and Google Maps.

Google said the outage was caused by a software update and affected Google Search and Maps. However, users on Twitter said they were unable to access Gmail services as well.

“We’re aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected availability of Google Search and Maps, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We worked to quickly address the issue, and our services are now back online,” Google spokesperson told Cybernews.

Google apologizes for a global services outage — Google error message.

Thousands of users flocked to Twitter, reporting a Google services outage. According to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, over 30,000 users reported issues with Google in the United States alone.

Meanwhile, data from network intelligence firm ThousandEyes showed that at its peak, the outage affected 1,338 servers in the US, India, Australia, and parts of Europe.

Users trying to use Google services were prompted with a 500 error, which implies a general problem with the website’s server.

Google Search is the largest search engine in the world, covering over 90% of the market. The outage of the tool bewildered many, with users flocking to alternative search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.