Google hit by worldwide outage as users report search engine down

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Google experienced a major international internet outage on Tuesday, technology platforms reported.

The realtime online platform Downdetector reported users had registered problems with Google explorer, the world’s dominant search engine from 2.12am BST (9.12pm EST, 11.12AM AEST.

As of 11.38AM, there had been 4,113 confirmed reports of Google outages.

Users said sister platforms Gmail, Google maps and Google images were also experiencing problems. Both rely on Google’s search engine to operate.

Network intelligence company ThousandEyes Inc reported Google outages were 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 attempting to use the search engine were met with a 502 or 500 error.

“The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request,” one error page read.

“Please try again in 30 seconds.”

Users took to Twitter to express their confusion, reverting to alternate search engines including Bing and DuckDuckGo to surf the web.

Google doesn’t release exact traffic numbers however it is the most visited website on the net, receiving more than 80 billion visits per month.

The company had not commented publicly on the outage or its cause.