Oh dear. If you try and search using Google in Windows 8.1 there’s a very good chance the results page won’t display properly. Whatever you search for will generate a mangled page that works, but makes finding the results you want rather tricky.

This problem doesn’t affect searching using Google in Chrome, or Firefox, it only affects IE11 in both Modern UI and Desktop modes.

Google worked just fine in IE11 prior to the official launch of the new operating system, so it seems rather strange it should be misbehaving now.

Also at the moment it’s difficult to know who is to blame for this cock up -- is it a problem with Microsoft’s browser, or an error at the search giant’s end? I would guess the latter as all the other sites I’ve tried are displaying just fine in IE11. But it's certainly one for the conspiracy theorists.

I’ve asked Microsoft and Google for a comment and will update this post when I hear back. Of course this being a weekend it will likely be Monday before a response is forthcoming and the issue might have been fixed by then…

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson tells me "It appears Google made some changes to its search engine that temporarily impacted the way search results rendered for some browsers. We have already made the necessary adjustments to ensure customers using Internet Explorer are not impacted".

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