Three checks to make when outage searches start rising

A rise in searches is evidence of attention, not proof of an outage, its cause, or its reach. Running these three checks before publication helps preserve both speed and accuracy.

1. Start with the official status page

Check whether the service provider has registered an incident. An official status page should come before search snippets or social posts because it can distinguish investigating, mitigating, and resolved states as the incident changes.

2. Separate confirmed facts from unknowns

Use a small fact boundary in the editorial note.

Check	Safe wording	Wording to avoid
Status	An incident appears on the official page	The entire service is down
Scope	The listed product or region is affected	Users worldwide are affected
Timing	The page shows a last-update time	The service will return soon

If the provider has not published a cause, keep the cause marked as unknown.

3. Record the check time and the next review

Show a last-checked time so readers can judge freshness. If the event is ongoing, put another check in the editorial queue. When a published fact changes, add the change to the correction record.

This checklist does not report a particular outage. It defines the editorial process for safely handling search interest around outages.