How Good is Gmail’s Uptime?
7:18 pm April 2nd, 2007 by Sal Cangeloso
Like most independent internet publishers, I keep pretty close tabs on my site’s traffic statistics. For this blog I have noticed that every day a few people come here from Google after searching for error code 767. This was the error code that came up when Gmail went down for me (and a number of other people a few weeks ago. These only amount to a few people a day but it is interesting.
If people are searching for this term than they must be, for some reason, locked out of Gmail. Currently my Gmail account has been perfect since the last widespread interruption, but it makes me wonder if at any given time a small percentage of users are having their own problem. Otherwise why would be they researching that error code? I don’t think this is anything to worry about, but it is worth noting.
This blog is currently the number one search result for “gmail error code 767” so if people are searching for this there is a good chance they are winding up here. This makes it pretty clear that not many people are searching, because I am only getting a few readers a day, but webmail downtime is a serious problem.
These are probably small, isolated incidents so I don’t think they are any cause for concern. I have noticed that error codes 767 and 766 can sometimes result from a problem with the browser interacting with Gmail and can often be solved by cleaning out the cache and trying again so hopefully most people are coming by the blog, getting instructions, and fixing everything. If the problem is some sort of rolling blackout where a few people can’t get on at any given time it will surely come to light sooner or later, but I am guessing that after the last problem and now that Apps Premium is out Google is going to stay on top of their webmail (though platform upgrades can lead to outages from time to time).
