It is getting to the point where I can no longer use Google to search the Web. Every day I have to clear my browser cache/cookies so that Hummingbird doesn’t get its evil, nasty, filthy little claws into my queries.
Whoever at Google thought this “We’ll remember everything you search for” idea would be good for the Web was obviously shot up with more heroin than a Taliban can sell on the open market.
For many weeks I have found myself designing more complex, more intricate queries. I kept wondering why Google was fighting with me, and then explained that Google had changed its search technology.
At PubCon last week Matt Cutts assured Webmasters in the audience that Hummingbird won’t affect SEO even though it’s affecting something like 98% of queries.
Technically, Matt’s right. You need to keep doing the same good stuff for SEO that you always should have been doing.
But if you’re just a searcher, just someone trying to find something, you’re screwed. Google knows better than you what you haven’t yet found and it will show you something even better than what you hope for based on your previous searches.
Ordinary, non-technical searchers will put up with this crap for a while because they don’t know any better, but I’ll bet my best jacket that I’m not the only person fed up with these horrible mal-adjusted search results. I just want to shake the shit off my shoe.
Hummingbird, Fly Away, Fly Away, Leave Me Alone
I have recently found myself using Bing more than I was accustomed to because Google kept showing me absolute crap — irrelevant nonsense that is clearly tied to previous queries.
I’m not sure I want to become a big Bing user just yet because Bing refuses to index a lot of perfectly useful Websites. I may have to start using, I dunno, IxQuick or something else just to see if I can get some REAL Web search results.
The only way I have found to cure the Hummingbird Blues so far is to either change browsers (but eventually that history piles up) or to clear the history.
In theory you shouldn’t have to clear your cache, but apparently if you go back to a cached image of Google you get all the cookie goodness — or something. I don’t know what kind of crazy crap dance they are doing on the other end but so far the only way to get out of the Hummingbird Kill Zone is to clear the browser history.
Maybe If They Just Reverse the Polarity…
Frankly, I don’t need this kind of helpful search and I seriously doubt that my background in search marketing is biasing my opinion that much. Like everyone else out there I still need to search the Internet to find driving directions, drug interaction information, news about whatever bothers me at the moment, forms to fill out, etc.
My searches are not all about “checking rankings”. So when I see Websites that shouldn’t be hanging around in the SERPs, I know it’s time to clear my browser history.
And that’s a HUGE problem because I have come to rely on my browser history to help me find old Websites that I visited “a few days ago”, that I want to visit again. I don’t always remember what led me to those sites but I know I can search the browser history to find them.
Except now I have to clear the browser history to get rid of the crap results that Hummingbird is serving up. Google, just let me go back to searching the Web. When I want your opinion of what is helpful and interesting to me, I will give it to you. I promise.
They Could Just Cap It Off, Maybe
If there isn’t an automatic cutoff/reset point — where after a certain number of queries Google just gives you average, normal, boring old Web search results again — there SHOULD be.
This isn’t a Web spam problem.
Brands are not the solution I am looking for.
High Quality Websites don’t always have the information I need.
In short, and I will make this as monosyllabic as possible so that everyone understands me: GIVE ME BACK MY GOOD SERPS.
I don’t like Hummingbird, I don’t want Hummingbird, I don’t have time for this techno-druggie garbage, and I just want a search engine that SEARCHES. That’s all I ask for. It’s a simple request.
Restore my good Google search or I will find a new favorite search engine.
I have spoken. Watch me leave….
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I feel your pain Michael. I’ve thought for a long time that if I wasn’t an SEO I would have stopped using Google search by now. Technical queries were becoming impossible even without Hummingbird simply because every result seems to be biased towards commercial websites (and of course brands). The only exceptions seem to be where Yelp or some other useless directory gets endless listings (or of course Wackypedia).
Frighteningly it’s all too easy to use Google by habit and then get frustrated at the results. When I remember I use Duck Duck Go and suddenly things are a lot easier. I just hope they survive long enough to inherit the “search” crown that Google is abandoning.
You are so right! In the last couple of days I have had to do a lot of research. WTH? this hummingbird search logic sucks. I ended up using Dogpile & Bing…. May be time for Google to step aside. Or kill hummingbird.