Google Search outage: Major problems with search quality and indexing

Google Search outage: Major problems with search quality and indexing

Around 9:30 p.m. ET yesterday, Google experienced a significant outage with Google Search.

Even though the problem persisted through the night, restoration attempts appeared to have lessened some of the connectivity problems that many people had been having.

But this appears to set off a chain reaction of other problems with Google Search involving general search quality.

Google Search problems; The outage appears to not be the only problem, despite being the most obvious one.

I’ve seen issues with the overall search results impacting search quality. These issues include:

• Outages and inaccessibility of Google Search
• Old pages dropping out of Google Search
• New pages not being indexed by Google Search
• Google Search results look stale and outdated
• Huge ranking fluctuations

I posted some screenshots of the issues on the Search Engine Roundtable.

What Happened?

It appears that a fire broke out in a Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which led to the injury of several employees and problems with Google Search.

The incident occurred at 11:59 a.m. local time on Monday, the Council Bluffs Police Department told SFGATE. A Google spokesperson told them:

“We are aware of an electrical incident that took place today at Google’s data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, injuring three people on site who are now being treated. The health and safety of all workers is our absolute top priority, and we are working closely with partners and local authorities to thoroughly investigate the situation and provide assistance as needed.”

Google is aware

Google is aware of the issue, as you can see from the statement above.

But Google is also aware of the overall Google Search issues related to this fire.

John Mueller from Google commented on Twitter about how things should come back to normal as restoration efforts are underway. Here is what he posted:

Why We Care:

This may be the cause if you experience significant fluctuations in Google Search traffic or ranking adjustments, whether favorable or bad.

As this problem is rectified, things should return to normal, but it’s not certain how long it will take for everything to be as it was before the fire.

Those who suffered injuries in this data center fire deserve our thoughts and prayers.