Google News was down for many earlier: here’s what you need to know

Down Detector has been showing a spike in Google outages reported by users since about 8 AM ET on May 31st. Folks are noting in the comments section that Google News is the impacted service, specifically that the feed is down. 

Google News typically showcases suggested stories at the top, but currently, the two main bins appear broken, each with the same “Uh-oh” phrase. You can access that page here, but it’s worth noting that Google Search’s news box appears to be working as expected.

It’s not just impacting the homepage for Google News either. Navigating to the various categories at the top, like U.S., World, Business, or Technology, among others, displays an empty feed. 

While Google’s Cloud Services status page doesn’t list this service specifically, it doesn’t show an outage for any of its products worldwide. 

Similar to the status page for Cloud Services, Google Search’s status dashboard shows all as operational. 

Like on desktop, Google News is also having issues on mobile. I’m seeing it down on both and several of my colleagues here at TechRadar are as well. 

On Down Detector and on social media, users from across the the globe – including in Italy and several states in the United States – are reporting issues accessing the service from either mobile or desktop.

It seems that Google News might have returned to normal for some users but hit a roadblock again, according to Down Detector, with a noticeable drop in reported outages and then a spike a few minutes later. In the comments section, some users note that the service is back up, while others say it’s still not loading.

Google News is back up and running for me and several of my colleagues. Navigating to the main feed on desktop and mobile shows a well-populated carousel of stories.

Down Detector is showing a large drop in the number of reports of an outage as well with people in the comments noting that Google News is back to normal. 

While Google News does appear online for most users, the Google Search Status Dashboard now shows a “service interruption.” 

As of 9:47 AM ET on May 31, 2024, Google notes, “There’s an ongoing issue with serving some features in Google Search. We’ve identified the issue and we’re working on a fix. Next update will be within 12 hours.” 

Google has also confirmed the issue on X (formerly Twitter), writing that “there’s an ongoing issue with serving some features in Google Search,” and that a fix is being worked on. 

As of 11:29 AM ET, Google’s Search Status Dashboard shows everything as operational with the update: “We fixed the issue with serving certain search features. There will be no more updates.”