YouTube, the video service acquired by Google in October 2006 for $1.6 billion, causes new trouble for the search giant after it returned a 404 Not Found error to all the Internet users. Basically, this error is returned when the index file of the webpage is unavailable or it was completely deleted. Although I doubt the file was removed, it seems like the entire YouTube is down as no other videos are currently accessible. However, the Google team didn't make any official announcement about a maintenance period or at least a scheduled downtime, so it seems like the video service causes new headaches for the search giant's superiors.

As you know, Google was one of the most stable companies on the Internet because the search giant encountered only a 7 minutes downtime, a period of time when the official page was unavailable. According to the recent reports, Google was down for almost 3 minutes in April and also 3 minutes on January 18. Although there are no official reasons for the unavailability, I believe the company is now working for some minor updates.

In the past, I repeatedly said that YouTube tends to become more than a simple online video sharing service because it is currently visited by millions of Internet users, most of them with other reasons than the ones presented by Google. For example, YouTube was also a police tool after multiple police officers uploaded surveillance clips to require users' help and arrest the suspects. Then, YouTube saved some lives after a woman fighting against leukemia published her story on the page to find a matching donor. After the clip recorded thousands of views, she managed to find another matching user in Denmark, YouTube saving her life.