Hummingbird - Google Search Engine Update

[Jay_v]

What’s “Hummingbird?”
It’s the name of the new search algorithm that Google is using, one that Google says should return better results.

When did Hummingbird start? Today?
Google started using Hummingbird about a month ago, it said. Google only announced the change today.

http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816

[Nibor]

I had just finished reading that article when I came across this post. I was going to start a thread, but looks like you beat me to it! Anyway it has been good for us, big fan of hummingbirds now

[casinovegas]

I had just finished reading that article when I came across this post. I was going to start a thread, but looks like you beat me to it! Anyway it has been good for us, big fan of hummingbirds now

Ha ha, I was about to post a thread as well after getting this on an email:

A quick note to let you know that Google just announced a major new update.

They're calling it Hummingbird because it is "precise and fast". It was released in quiet around a month ago, and is the first major update since the "Caffeine" update in 2010.

This update is said to allow more "conversational" type queries instead of everything being rigidly keyword focused. In other words, they're attempting to understand the overall meaning of a query instead of just the words inside it. Additionaly it seems to focus more on "brands", meaning the big authority sites will be pushing out the smaller and more focused niche sites.

Since this update rolled out quietly around a month ago, if you lost traffic you may now know why.

You can read a bit more about it:

• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Land
• Huffington Post (?!)

They went on to say that nothing needs to be taken into account for SEO purposes, and that all the same rules still apply. Since this is mostly query-based processing, I suspect that may be a true statement.

[Nibor]

They went on to say that nothing needs to be taken into account for SEO purposes, and that all the same rules still apply. Since this is mostly query-based processing, I suspect that may be a true statement.

Yeah well as far SEO is concerned I would agree no change really, except that clearly by encouraging users to type "conversational" type queries it will obviously make the long tail of keywords more prominent. I guess that in the future, as hummingbird is improved the short tail where the traditional big money terms are could become obsolete. So it is never more true than now that content is key!

With the 'brand' issue I would say that that has been going on longer. I would say that this might be a problem for affiliate sites in particular; who until now, might have got by on SEO driven traffic rather than brand driven. Not to say all affiliates don't have recognised brand identities, but some might struggle. So again IMO it is important now more than ever to establish yourself as a brand in the eyes of Google. I guess a simple way of measuring whether your brand is strong or not, is look at your traffic, and decide whether you could survive off of brand based searches or direct traffic alone.

[edgarf76]

Good Post, This is the first time I have heard about Hummingbird. I guess google is sticking to animals for their algos.

[universal4]

except that clearly by encouraging users to type "conversational" type queries it will obviously make the long tail of keywords more prominent.

That was my take on the articles I have read so far too. I had seen an article on the the other day (maybe the Huffington article) and had the same impression that long tails may start performing better.

Rick
Universal4

[Maria678]

As far as I understand, new algorithm requires quality content that gives answers to users questions as one of the features of Hummingbird is ability to give proper results for questions in queries.
So it seems that every page should be optimized as FAQ article=)

[xecutable]

I didn't notice anything, and a lot of people said the same, which means they did a good job upgrading without messing things up.

[edgarf76]

I read on SEO round table that they re-wrote the algo, and this is the first new algo in 12 years.

I had thought that each algo was a complete new code, but I guess they were tweaking what they did over a decade ago before they implemented Hummingbird? Any thoughts or feedback?

[universal4]

Now that part is interesting Edgar.

I wonder if they re-wrote the entire code base or whatever in hopes that future updates will be more stable and break stuff less or easier to impliment, or if it has to do more with keeping stuff "closer to the vest" and making it more difficult for anyone else to see what they are doing in order to reverse engineer.

Rick
Universal4

[xecutable]

I believe it's both. The algo probably started as a beta, kept getting tweaked over the years with more and more additional "patches". They probably decided to combine all that and rewrite it. And since years changed, they probably made it more secure to reverse engineering as well. Either way they seem to have completed it with a great match, as most webmasters didn't even know it rolled out until they read it.

[edgarf76]

I went into the archives and found the article. http://www.seroundtable.com/google-h...ird-17442.html

This is confusing, I thought each algo was a re-write, I did not think they had written one years ago and have been tweaking it. Does this mean that this is the next decades algo and there will be changes like panda/penguin/emd updates to it?

[catrionaleo]

Hummingbird update completely rewritten Google algorithm to support Google’s future advanced search features. This new algorithm requires quality content.

[edgarf76]

what is the source of your statement catrionaleo?

[universal4]

Here is one source
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-h...urt-17462.html

Rick
Universal4

[edgarf76]

I read this blog a lot of blog and I have read that post. I have written on here the question, how can it be a complete re-written algo if they are still running penguin? If they re-wrote the algo, wouldnt they have fixed any glitch for Google’s future advanced search features?

[muffincrumbs]

I read this blog a lot of blog and I have read that post. I have written on here the question, how can it be a complete re-written algo if they are still running penguin? If they re-wrote the algo, wouldnt they have fixed any glitch for Google’s future advanced search features?

Penguin and Panda are like the fuel injection CPU of the completely rebuilt and redesigned search engine: hummingbird.

That's how I understand it