When you run as many services with as many features as Google, bugs tend to pop up from time to time. The latest major bug concerns Google Search's custom date ranges, which are causing tabs to freeze when used. Google is working on fixing this and has presented a workaround for the time being.
We're aware that using the Custom Range option to restrict search results by date may cause a browser's tab to freeze. We hope to resolve this soon. In the meantime, the before: & after: commands can be used for date restriction. More here: https://t.co/5l4HON1pxB
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 19, 2021
The bug was first reported on the Google Search Help forums around three days ago, and it has since garnered 368 upvotes from users experiencing the same issue. Basically, people are finding their browser tabs freezing when using the custom date range function found within the Tools dropdown. The bug was leaving many unable to search for results only from a certain time range, but Google has now provided a workaround.
The before: & after: commands return documents before & after a date. You must provide year-month-day dates or only a year. You can combine both. For example:
[avengers endgame before:2019]
[avengers endgame after:2019-04-01]
[avengers endgame after:2019-03-01 before:2019-03-05] pic.twitter.com/bo1rSeulbH— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 9, 2019
As suggested by Danny Sullivan, Google's public Search Liaison, commands can be used as a substitute while this bug is being fixed. They're pretty simple to use, and Sullivan gives a couple more tips in the Twitter thread above. We'll be sure to let you know when we learn more about the bug fix.
About half an hour after this post went up, the issue was fixed per the Google Search Liaison Twitter account. That was quick.
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