Google applications including YouTube, email and Docs have suffered a rare service outage, with users unable to access many of the company's services.

The outage started shortly before noon UK time, lasting more than half an hour before services were restored.

Users around the world reported problems with Gmail, Google Drive, the Android Play Store, Maps and more.

Google's search engine, however, remained unaffected by the problems affecting its other services.

Google said the problem hit its authentication system, which is used for logging in and similar functions, and lasted about 45 minutes.

Users were still able to access the websites' landing pages in "incognito mode", which does not store a log of the users' browsing activity.

Were you affected by this outage today? Let us know in the comments below!