Google fixed the News and Discover technical issues that affected millions globally, but the impact on news publishers’ traffic remains to be seen. 

Google News temporarily crashed around the globe, leaving millions in the dark when searching for results. The outage also affected Google Trends, Google Discovery, and other services using news publications. 

Here’s a Google News screenshot reply at the time of the crash: “Your search – Google News – did not match any news results.”

On Friday, May 31, widespread disruption issues were reported, with many users taking to social media sites to report the problem.

Users on X shared screenshots of the results: 

So, if you had Google News tab search issues or experienced weird traffic fluctuations, you weren’t alone, as millions were left without their daily dose of Google News and Google Discovery services.

How it affected publishers

Publishers depend on the enormous amount of traffic from the Google News tab in Google Search, Google Trends, and Google Discovery. And while Google addressed the problem, many may have suffered a decrease in traffic during the outage. 

Google confirms the issue

Google released a statement on X acknowledging the global disruption, saying they identified and resolved the problem at 11.30 ET. 

Google confirmed the services affected by the technical issue included Google News, Discover, and other unspecified Google features.

The Google Search Liaison post on X post:

Google didn`t provide further details

While Google quickly acknowledged the global outage and fixed the problem, it declined to provide any further details regarding its nature, such as whether it was an internal issue or caused by external factors.

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Terry O'Toole

Terry is a seasoned content marketing specialist with over six years of experience writing content that helps small businesses navigate where small businesses meet marketing - SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc. Terry has a proven track record of creating top-performing content in search results.
When he is not writing content, Terry can be found on his boat in Italy or chilling in his villa in Spain.

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