What’s a “search algorithm?”
It’s a technical term that you can think of as a recipe that Google uses to sort through billions of web pages. And other information it has, in order to return what it considers to be the best answer.
Since the fall of 2013, the Google Hummingbird algorithm has been making its mark on search results for billions of queries and providing end-users another small step toward a more intimate, personalized search engine results page.
It’s easy to forget that the present day of micro-moments and Google’s answer to contextual questions is a big change from the first 20 years of search, where specific keywords determined the results rather than taking into account the entire query.
To fully understand the importance of the Hummingbird update, let’s take a look at what the discovery was like before release, what Hummingbird was designed to do, and why it really changed our lives.
We were still living in a time of “great content” and spying on the earnings of links (rather than buying or planning for them), and were able to answer questions that people cared about, which still was the goal.
However, just a year before Hummingbird’s launch, the search results landscape was quite different.
What’s the “Hummingbird algorithm?”
Hummingbird is the name of the new search algorithm that Google is using, which Google says should return better results.
Why is it called Hummingbird?
Google told us that the name came from being “accurate and fast.”
What were the Goals of the Google Hummingbird Update?
The Hummingbird update which was announced on September 26, 2013, but was actually launched last month – the next evolutionary step after the 2010 Caffeine update and other significant changes that changed how users responded and engaged with search results.
Hummingbird marked a huge advancement in Google’s search technology. It impacted about 90 percent of searches worldwide.
Hummingbird’s focus is on three key components
1. Conversational Search
By being able to use natural language processing, search results will be able to yield specific results for queries at both the top and long-tail levels.
By being able to assess intent in a semantic way, Hummingbird sought to allow users the ability to confidently search for topics and subtopics, rather than engineer questions using Google-fu.
2. Human Search
In the early days, it was difficult to find anything on search engines. You must remember how difficult it can be to find what you are looking for on search engines when you do not have complete knowledge of that particular subject or you are lacking in it.
Hummingbird tried to solve this by focusing on synonymous and subject-related themes.
By being able to let people know what they don’t know and curating results that help users find what they’re looking for, Hummingbird has taken Google one step closer to becoming a little more human.
3. The Foundations of Voice Search
As Hummingbird used context and intent to deliver more results that matched user needs, localized results became more accurate.
The combination of conversational language processing based on location data and understanding human intention has meant that much of what we believe in today is the result of years of turning dreams of meaningful discovery into reality
Improving Local Search
By using semantic search and natural language processing that takes into account how humans think, desire, and use search engines to find what they are looking for, keywords in local business website titles, and meta descriptions. The old practice of talking to him became a little less important.
This meant that the long-standing practice of spamming a page with keywords and fake business names was weakened again, although it is still a practice that many people (often successfully) still use today.
Hummingbird’s Legacy
The Hummingbird update carries a reputation as the biggest game-changing move Google made when it was released.
But was it?
It depends on how you look at it, and what it actually did for users and the world of organic search.
The update didn’t wreak havoc on SERPs like its Panda and Penguin predecessors, nor was it the first step in using a data-linked approach to provide reliable results for queries. It was also not the first major step towards improving the sequencing of information.
The hummingbird may not be the sea change many people made, but that doesn’t mean its importance should diminish.
Hummingbird stood on the shoulders of Caffeine, knowledge graph updates, and the now-defunct authorship push, the result of which many cite as a major overhaul of Google’s core algorithm rather than an add-on.
Google didn’t replace the search engine’s air filter. It replaced the entire engine block.
Google’s focus on serving results that meet the human side of user intent was felt in both top-level and long-tail queries, and to this day, when a user looks to capitalize on “micro-moments”. For subjects that do/know/go, Hummingbird deserves its fair share of thanks.
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