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Does google ever go offline?

by sylviad
15 replies
Several times when I've tried to go to Google's search engine, I get a "page not found" and I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this.

Now, it could be my computer but it would be interesting to know if Google ever actually does have down days when you can't get to the site.

If it were the computer, then other sites would bring the same error, but when Google doesn't connect, I've always been able to use Yahoo instead. When I come back to Google minutes later, it's ok.

Of course, the other issue in this is the possibility that if you were using PPc, you'd lose a few minutes of exposure if the site goes down now and then.

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas re this.

Sylvia
#google #offline
  • Profile picture of the author Scott Ames
    I've had this happen as well the past few days. I found if I keep trying I get a different server and it works fine. Google has thousands of servers so at any given time some probably go down.
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      It seems a little irresponsible to me. If it's happened to me a few times over a few months, and it's happening to others, that's a lot of down time and misconnects. It took me a minute or so to get on this time, but in the past, it's taken as much as 5 minutes.

      And that doesn't include the times they just cut me off for an hour or so at a time because they don't like me doing keyword searches.

      Is Google getting so big they can't keep up with the demand?

      Sylvia
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      • Profile picture of the author braver55b
        That has never happened to me, that I can think of. I don't think its something that will happen again as Google is the king of search and wouldn't risk that position by not being able to keep up with demand.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Very doubtful. Royal Pingdom Google availability differs greatly between countries

    There are a lot of "hops" you must take to get to google. That is, middlemen. If any of these are impacted, it will seem like Google is down. In fact, it's probably your ISP, upstream provider or many of the other servers inbetween.
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      Thanks, BlueSquares, for the informative link.

      The reason for my post is based on the expectation that major companies like Google would not have any downtime, but according to the info in your link, this is fantasy.

      I've run into problems using Google Canada and U.S. - and I see from those stats that Canada averages 16 minutes of downtime while the US is 31 - and that's over an entire year?

      How accurate are those stats anyway? With only 16 or 31 minutes in a given year, what are the odds that I (and others) would hit the downtime several times over 1-2 month?

      It's probably very realistic, but the math is beyond my capabilities.

      And no... it can't be my ISP, because other sites worked fine.

      Sylvia
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      • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
        I've never seen it, but there is no way they have 100% uptime on every single dataserver they have so I'm sure it happens.
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      • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
        Originally Posted by sylviad View Post


        I've run into problems using Google Canada and U.S. - and I see from those stats that Canada averages 16 minutes of downtime while the US is 31 - and that's over an entire year?

        How accurate are those stats anyway? With only 16 or 31 minutes in a given year, what are the odds that I (and others) would hit the downtime several times over 1-2 month?

        It's probably very realistic, but the math is beyond my capabilities.


        Sylvia

        31 minutes over a year is a very impressive figure. To achieve a 99% annual availability rating you could be down for 3.65 days per year. A 99.9 % availability rating means you are unavailable for about 8 hours and 45 minutes per year.

        31 Minutes is an availability rating of 99.994101978691019786910197869102 % if I did the math correctly!

        Bill
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  • Profile picture of the author tj
    Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

    Several times when I've tried to go to Google's search engine, I get a "page not found" and I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this.

    Now, it could be my computer but it would be interesting to know if Google ever actually does have down days when you can't get to the site.

    If it were the computer, then other sites would bring the same error, but when Google doesn't connect, I've always been able to use Yahoo instead. When I come back to Google minutes later, it's ok.

    Of course, the other issue in this is the possibility that if you were using PPc, you'd lose a few minutes of exposure if the site goes down now and then.

    Just wondering if anyone has any ideas re this.

    Sylvia
    Are you sure that you're online at that time? Often your Internet connection is disconnected by your provider and you get pages like page not found ... but you're still thinking that you're online.

    Timo
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      Originally Posted by tj View Post

      Are you sure that you're online at that time? Often your Internet connection is disconnected by your provider and you get pages like page not found ... but you're still thinking that you're online.

      Timo
      Nope. I thought of that, too, but it was just with Google. I tried Yahoo and got on, went back to try Google again and still couldn't, so ended up using Yahoo.

      Bill, my point was that I've managed to hit those "down days" about 5 times over about 8 months (maybe more, I wasn't keeping track), so if those numbers are correct, what are the odds that I'd hit 5 of those 16 days?

      I only just switched to Google US a few days ago, and already had 1 miss.

      Seems to me that's quite a coincidence, or those stats numbers are not accurate.

      Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    I don't care how much money you have, technology isn't perfect. I don't think Google has more money than the US Government and Nasa has stuff that breaks down millions of miles from home, so I am sure that even Google has a few seconds or minutes every month when their servers don't respond. I don't have any figures to give you, but logic would have to say that this is the case.
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    Probably more likely your computer or ISP that is causing the problems as Google has massive redundancies that if one server goes down it switches to another.

    If it was once then maybe you hit a glitch but more regular would suggest your side.

    While you maybe able to access other websites it does not mean it is not on your side of the query. Your ISP may have added new services and propagating or any number of things.

    If it was happening a lot believe me you would hear about it and not stuck in some back blocks of the news.

    Quentin
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  • Profile picture of the author andrewharrison
    I have never experienced Google being down. . . I am sure it could happen. Kind of odd. . .
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  • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
    Aloha Sylvia

    I think that the real reason for Google's unavailability is likely what was mentioned earlier - issue with routers and communications links along the way. If Google's availability rate was indeed as high as quoted then it's unlikely that any of us will hit them on a down moment (unless all 31 minutes occur on the same day!).

    I just did a trace route on Google (tracert google.com at the command prompt) and there are 16 hops to get from me to Google, including my own router. Thats 16 places where an error, disconnection or timeout could occur. You probably have a similar number of hops to traverse to Google yourself. Perhaps one of them is failing.

    It would be interesting from your location in Canada to do a trace route on the US Google vs google.ca and see what hops they have in common. I was in Montreal last month and never thought to do that, I did notice that all of my Google home pages diverted to google.ca while I was using my notebook there.

    For the record the only times I haven't been able to get Google online all turned out to be my fault!

    Bill
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  • Profile picture of the author navi
    Google being down? The world would end!
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    • Profile picture of the author gamefreak
      yes today whole day google was down and i had a difficult time. I became dependent on google for search
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