Google has a new search algorithm, the system it uses to
sort through all the information it has when you search and come back with
answers. It’s called “Hummingbird” and below, what we know about it so far.
What’s a “search algorithm?”
That’s a technical term for what you can think of as a
recipe that Google uses to sort through the billions of web pages and other
information it has, in order to return what it believes are the best answers.
What’s “Hummingbird?”
It’s the name of the new search algorithm that Google is
using, one that Google says should return better results.
So that “PageRank” algorithm is dead?
No. PageRank is
one of over 200 major “ingredients” that go into the Hummingbird recipe.
Hummingbird looks at PageRank — how important links to a page are deemed to be
— along with other factors like whether Google believes a page is of good
quality, the words used on it and many other things (see our Periodic Table Of SEO Success
Factors for a better sense of some of these).
Why is it called Hummingbird?
Google told us the name come from being “precise and fast.”
When did Hummingbird start? Today?
Google started using Hummingbird about a month ago, it said.
Google only announced the change today.
What does it mean that Hummingbird is now being used?
Think of a car built in the 1950s. It might have a great
engine, but it might also be an engine that lacks things like fuel injection or
be unable to use unleaded fuel. When Google switched to Hummingbird, it’s as if
it dropped the old engine out of a car and put in a new one. It also did this
so quickly that no one really noticed the switch.
When’s the last time Google replaced its algorithm this
way?
Google struggled to recall when any type of major change
like this last happened. In 2010, the “Caffeine
Update” was a huge change. But that was also a change mostly meant to help
Google better gather information (indexing) rather than sorting through the
information. Google search Chief Amit Singhal told me that perhaps 2001, when
he first joined the company, was the last time the algorithm was so
dramatically rewritten.
What about all these Penguin, Panda and other “updates” —
haven’t those been changes to the algorithm?
Panda, Penguin and
other updates were changes to parts of the old algorithm, but not an
entire replacement of the whole. Think of it again like an engine. Those things
were as if the engine received a new oil filter or had an improved pump put in.
Hummingbird is a brand new engine, though it continues to use some of the same
parts of the old, like Penguin and Panda
The new engine is using old parts?
Yes. And no. Some of the parts are perfectly good, so there
was no reason to toss them out. Other parts are constantly being replaced. In
general, Hummingbird — Google says — is a new engine built on both existing and
new parts, organized in a way to especially serve the search demands of today,
rather than one created for the needs of ten years ago, with the technologies
back then.
What type of “new” search activity does Hummingbird help?
“Conversational
search” is one of the biggest examples Google gave. People, when speaking
searches, may find it more useful to have a conversation.
“What’s the closest place to buy the iPhone 5s to my home?”
A traditional search engine might focus on finding matches for words — finding
a page that says “buy” and “iPhone 5s,” for example.
Hummingbird should better focus on the meaning behind the
words. It may better understand the actual location of your home, if you’ve
shared that with Google. It might understand that “place” means you want a
brick-and-mortar store. It might get that “iPhone 5s” is a particular type of
electronic device carried by certain stores. Knowing all these meanings may
help Google go beyond just finding pages with matching words.
In particular, Google said that Hummingbird is paying more
attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole
sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than
particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather
than pages matching just a few words.
I thought Google did this conversational search stuff
already!
It does (see Google’s
Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome), but it had only
been doing it really within its Knowledge Graph answers. Hummingbird is
designed to apply the meaning technology to billions of pages from across the
web, in addition to Knowledge Graph facts, which may bring back better results.
Does it really work? Any before-and-afters?
We don’t know. There’s no way to do a “before-and-after”
ourselves, now. Pretty much, we only have Google’s word that Hummingbird is
improving things. However, Google did offer some before-and-after examples of
its own; that it says shows Hummingbird improvements.
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