Google search has long been the go-to resource for people wanting the right answers to questions.
But over the past two days 'Googling-it' has not been as simple as it normally is.
That is because web pages are freezing when using targeted searches.
Many users have found that when using Tools for a Google Search, the web page freezes when trying to specify precise dates. The error, which means dates cannot be inputted is replicated on multiple browsers.
The issue, which surfaced on Sunday, has been referred by many users to the Google search team for a fix - but some are worried that it is the result of reduced functionality.
It comes as Google Search 'rival' DuckDuckGo has hit the 100m daily search milestone for the first time.
One user Robert Cozby told Google: "I'm trying to find info on a conspiracy theory my dad sent me and needed to search within the year 2016 to find the article to prove that it wasn't posted yesterday since every search containing 'Martial law' are all recent articles which furthers his paranoia.
"Google literally won't show me articles from 2016 no matter what I type in. I was relying on the custom range search to narrow down the results. Thanks Google. Thank you for making it even harder to search for things, while directly impacting my personal life and possibly the country too if there are others like me trying to find information to disprove disinformation and needs the ability to narrow down the results.
"Since I can't actually narrow down my search and disprove that stuff, he's sitting there stewing in disinformation.
"And if the feature really is being phased out: Real pioneer of information technology there, Google. Hope everyone working at Google sees this and is proud of their work, because that's how their decisions ffect the life of everyday people. Try adding tools and features instead of taking them away."
Trying to use @Google search with custom date range for results, but it keeps freezing whenever I click 'custom range'. Have tried this on different browsers and same issue. Can anyone else verify if this happens to them also? pic.twitter.com/54AaHcV0Pl
— Michael Verrari (@MichaelVerrari) January 18, 2021
Another said: "I realized this yesterday and thought it was a fluke, but it happened again today. I don't think this is an accident either, but I could be wrong."
Today the US Google search alternative, which prides itself on its privacy policy, hit 102,251,307 total, the first time it has exceeded the 100 million mark.
In November 2019, DuckDuckGo reached the 50 million searches per day milestone. So it took a little more than a year to hit the 100 million mark. It reached the 30m mark in October of 2018.
It has a long way to go to catch up with Google, which gets many billions of queries per day.
And it is still shy of both Microsoft’s Bing and Baidu in China which have about a 10 percent share of search results.
In August, Google's search engine experienced a glitch that disrupted search results and impacted page rankings, according to reports.
The issue caused poor search results that in some cases didn't make sense, according to tweets posted at the time.
The issue was initially believed to be an update, but Google confirmed that it was a glitch.
The issue was initially believed to be an update to Google's search algorithm. But John Mueller, senior webmaster trends analyst at Google, later confirmed it was a glitch.
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