Has Google Lost the Beauty of the Old Search Engine?

For the last 2–3 days, many people and SEO professionals have been trying to stay hopeful by tweeting that their HCU-hit websites have fully recovered.

But I think they are only seeing impressions on Google Search Console data. The reality is that none of them have regained their pre-HCU traffic, according to Google Analytics (organic data). This means that even if your website is getting more impressions on Google Search, you are not receiving the same CTR as before.

The reason behind this is that a large number of users have already lost the habit of using Google Search due to inaccurate and misleading results. Many keywords have lost their search interest, and AIO (AI Overviews) is taking away CTR from real, original content creators.

Google needs fresh information to feed its AI, which is why they have started gaslighting publishers again.

We must all remember that a small company, founded 25 years ago, grew into the multi-billion-dollar Google - not because of HCU or AIO, but because of its core search features. Unfortunately, Google removed those features in 2023 after launching HCU.

Sadly, we have lost the beauty of the old Google Search.

Even though Sundar Pichai and the entire search team are happy with rising revenue, they are losing the race. Without small creators, Google is nothing.

Success has a broader meaning than just revenue, which Google's CEO has failed to realize.