Skip the navigation
News

Google News stutters for second day in a row

Glitches plague Google again; Multiple sites hit with three slowdowns in the past week

By Sharon Gaudin
May 19, 2009 02:32 PM ET

Computerworld - For the second day in a row, Google News had a glitch that derailed Google Inc.'s news aggregation site for a short time this morning.

Google News was down for what appeared to be less than 15 minutes between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. EDT today. It wasn't a long outage but it was the second in two days and the third in less than a week. Google confirmed today that a "small percentage of users" received a 503 Server Error when trying to call up the service.

"This issue has now been resolved," said Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman. "We know how important Google News is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously. We apologize to those users who were affected."

Stricker did not say what caused the short outage or how many users were affected.

On Monday, Google News went down between 8:35 a.m. EDT and 10 a.m. EDT. Some users trying to pull up the site received the same 503 Server Error message that was received today.

This week's glitches comes on the heels of a much bigger outage last Thursday that affected most Google products.

At the time, Google Search and Google News performance slowed to a crawl, while a full outage spread throughout the hosted Google Apps products, including Gmail, Google Maps and Google Reader. Comments about the failure were flying on Twitter, and "googlefail" quickly became one of the most-searched terms on the popular microblogging site.

Google reported that the May 14 outage, which started a little before 11 a.m. EDT, caused about 14% of Google users to experience slow service or interruptions. The problem affected all Google products.

Urs Hoelzle, Google senior vice president of operations, said in a blog post last week that a system error directed some of the company's Web traffic through Asia, creating the hangups and interruptions.

Read more about E-business in Computerworld's E-business Topic Center.



Additional Resources
Forrester Consulting - Optimizing Users and Applications in a Mobile World
WHITE PAPER
Solving application issues over the WAN requires careful consideration. Based on their independent research, Forrester Consulting offers recommendations on how to tackle application performance issues, insufficient bandwidth and the inability to quickly restore users in a disaster.

Read now.

Security KnowledgeVault
WHITE PAPER
Security is not an option. This KnowledgeVault Series offers professional advice how to be proactive in the fight against cybercrimes and multi-layered security threats; how to adopt a holistic approach to protecting and managing data; and how to hire a qualified security assessor. Make security your Number 1 priority.

Read now.

Cut Communications Costs Once and for All
WHITE PAPER
New IP-based communications systems are being deployed by small and midsized businesses at a rapid rate. Learn how these organizations are enabling faster responsiveness, creating better customer experiences, speeding office or mobile interactions, and dramatically reducing existing communications costs.

Read now.

E-business White Papers
Smarter Commerce is redefining value chain visibility
Smarter Commerce is redefining the value chain in the age of the customer. It starts with putting the customer at the center of...
IBM Synchronizes its Commerce 2.0 Strategy with 'Smarter Commerce' Initiative
On March 14, IBM announced "Smarter Commerce", a strategic initiative that addresses the surging market for Commerce 2.0 solutions that take advantage of...
Proof Positive - Extended Validation SSL Increases Online Sales and Transactions
With the threat of identity theft and other types of fraud rampant on the internet, many consumers are reluctant to release their details,...
Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
All E-business White Papers
E-business Webcasts
Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®...
All E-business Webcasts
Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter
  1. View all newsletters | Privacy Policy
IT Jobs