Google Search was throwing up broken, blank images on the Top Stories carousel, it’s been fixed now

Google has not officially acknowledged this issue yet but the search results are working fine now.

Due to the Google Search glitch, some of the images were missing or blurred while others worked normally. (Search Engine Roundtable)

For a while yesterday, Google Search was showing broken or blank images on its Top Stories carousel. When users were searching for any topic on Google, the Top Stories panel that shows the most read news reports was showing blurred or blank image thumbnails for a while starting Wednesday morning. Several users flagged the issue on Twitter and shared screenshots. The issue persisted till evening and Google had not officially acknowledged the matter, however, it appears to have been fixed now.

@searchliaison @dannysullivan @rustybrick
Google news carousel showing blank images today on desktop as well as mobile devices. is it a bug or SERP update? pic.twitter.com/HMerYoC2uY

— Soni Sharma (@soniseo) August 18, 2021

Starting Wednesday morning, particularly on the desktop browser, thumbnails on the Top Stories carousel were appearing blank or blurred. The issue was also spotted on the mobile browser as well. When you usually search for a topic on Google Search, the top stories are pulled up on the Top Carousel, three on desktop browsers. Due to the issue on Google Search, some of the images were missing or blurred while others worked normally.

Hmm. Not sure what's going on here. Across various SERP features on Google (top stories and tweet carousels in particular) I'm seeing image previews missing. Either blank or blurred out like pictured. Likely a bug but is quite strange... pic.twitter.com/zvayPrzoq3

— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) August 18, 2021

According to a report by Search Engine Roundtable, the issue had been occurring since August 18 morning and several users shared screenshots of it on Twitter. Some of them also tagged Google's Public Search Liaison Danny Sullivan, Google Search Advocate John Mueller, and others asking if this glitch was associated with certain keywords or something else entirely. None of these posts on Twitter were acknowledged by Google or the people tagged. 

By August 18 evening Google had not acknowledged the issue yet and as per reports, Gadgets360 had reached out to the company for an explanation asking when it would be fixed and had not heard back from them. A response came from Google's John Mueller late on Wednesday evening when he said that the issue was on their end. 

Yeah, it looks like an issue on our side.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 18, 2021

For a while yesterday, Google Search was showing broken or blank images on its Top Stories carousel. When users were searching for any topic on Google, the Top Stories panel that shows the most read news reports was showing blurred or blank image thumbnails for a while starting Wednesday morning. Several users flagged the issue on Twitter and shared screenshots. The issue persisted till evening and Google had not officially acknowledged the matter, however, it appears to have been fixed now.

Starting Wednesday morning, particularly on the desktop browser, thumbnails on the Top Stories carousel were appearing blank or blurred. The issue was also spotted on the mobile browser as well. When you usually search for a topic on Google Search, the top stories are pulled up on the Top Carousel, three on desktop browsers. Due to the issue on Google Search, some of the images were missing or blurred while others worked normally.

According to a report by Search Engine Roundtable, the issue had been occurring since August 18 morning and several users shared screenshots of it on Twitter. Some of them also tagged Google's Public Search Liaison Danny Sullivan, Google Search Advocate John Mueller, and others asking if this glitch was associated with certain keywords or something else entirely. None of these posts on Twitter were acknowledged by Google or the people tagged. 

By August 18 evening Google had not acknowledged the issue yet and as per reports, Gadgets360 had reached out to the company for an explanation asking when it would be fixed and had not heard back from them. A response came from Google's John Mueller late on Wednesday evening when he said that the issue was on their end. 

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The Google Search Liaison handle on Twitter also posted that a bug was causing this issue and they were working on fixing it. 

We are working to fix a bug that is causing some images in Top Stories on Google Search results not to render properly. Our apologies -- we hope to have this cleared up quickly!

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) August 18, 2021

Following this post, it took Google still a little bit of time to fix things but it's done. As of now, Google Search is working fine and the images in the Top Carousel are appearing as they normally should both on web and mobile versions of the browser.