Bing SERPs, Occasionally Showing Nothing for a Search

[engine]

I seem to have found a search on Bing that results in nothing returned.

Very odd. I try another search, different search terms, and I get results.

I go back to the original search and still nothing.

Half an hour later I now see results for that search term.

Very odd there was nothing.

[tangor]

The algo was probably taking a coffee break. :)

I have noticed this from time to time all over the web ... not just Bing ... wondering if traffic growth on the web in general is having minor "blockages" from time to time?

[lucy24]

Half an hour later I now see results for that search term.

Couple of days ago, every other search on G resulted in a server error. Not a “prove you’re a human” message, a bona fide 500-class error. Never seen one of those before; perhaps someone hit the wrong switch when changing data centers.

So long as they don’t all do it on the same day, it averages out in the end.

Come to think of it, what fun it would be if at some random moment, all search engines were unable to return results. Would civilization as we know it come to an end?

[tangor]

Probably not, but those easily excited with certainly be excited!

[engine]

If Bing's wanting to compete with G it'll have to sort out that problem of no results. What do people do, they move on to the next search engine.

[tangor]

Chuckles ... g just turned up blank ... twice! today. Apparently it's not a Bing thing. :)

[lucy24]

Because of the type of searches I do, it’s quite common to get a page headed “0 results” ... followed by a whole string of results, all different. It took me ages to figure out it’s because they don’t count hits from Google Books. (Modest of them!)

[engine]

These are not specialist searches, and i've never see this issue in G.
Just a guess, there must be some kind of server throttling going on.