Google Search’s built-in timer has disappeared — nevertheless it must be returning quickly

Till just lately, some of the handy methods to set a timer was to easily seek for one on Google. Punch in a question like “10 minute timer,” and, hey presto, you’d get a ten-minute timer. However final month, stories began to emerge that this function had disappeared from Google with out warning. Search Engine Roundtable was among the many first to cowl the lacking timer on July twentieth, citing tweets from round July 18th. The function continues to be lacking as we speak.

It seems that Google hasn’t determined to take away the helpful function with out warning. In a tweet, the corporate’s public search liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed that the function is briefly unavailable due to an unspecified downside. “We now have a difficulty that we’ve been trying [into],” Sullivan tweeted in response to this story, “we count on to have it again pretty quickly.”

Though there isn’t a scarcity of timers elsewhere on the net (or offered as inventory apps on iOS and Android) Google’s built-in model is a straightforward, accessible various. And, in addition to the timer, there was additionally a stopwatch function constructed into the identical widget for when it is advisable depend up relatively than down. The function dates again virtually a decade, having been launched in 2013.

Google’s Danny Sullivan first stated he’d look into the difficulty on July twenty first. Nearly every week later, on July twenty seventh, the crew was “nonetheless checking on it.” It appears no matter challenge is inflicting the function’s absence is proving tough to squash.

Initially, considerations have been raised that Google had eliminated the function deliberately, though that will have been an odd transfer given the corporate has spent a lot of the final decade constructing extra options natively into its search outcomes web page, relatively than eradicating them. What began out as a easy record of hyperlinks now contains every little thing from wealthy snippets that try to reply your search question on to a devoted field for information tales and much more particular options, like a built-in worth comparability software for airplane flights. None of those seem like going anyplace.

And, in case you’re questioning, Google Search’s built-in metronome continues to be alive and ticking — thank goodness.

Replace August 1st, 12:15PM ET: Up to date all through to mirror response from Google’s Danny Sullivan concerning the function’s return.

Correction: August 1st, 9:33AM ET: This text initially erroneously referred to the location Search Engine Roundtable as search engine optimisation Roundtable. We remorse the error.