Google Reinvents the Search Engine With Hummingbird

Online, October 28, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Hummingbird, the name reflects Google's goal to be "precise and fast." Google took the wraps off their brand new search algorithm at a press event on September 26. This marks the first completely new algorithm since 2001. If you are wondering if this will impact your website right away, consider that Google actually launched Hummingbird over a month ago. Any abnormalities should have shown themselves by now.

The Mobile Sector is continuing to steer the direction of new technology. As more and more searches continue to come from mobile devices, the percentage of total searches using 'voice search' is increasing exponentially. Google's Android operating system represents roughly half of all the mobile market so they are in perfect position to forecast the future of search queries. Hummingbird is designed to produce 'answers', not 'results', by considering the keyword content of a query in conjunction with question words, like "where", "what", and "how." This new natural language approach is a far cry from the staccato "three keywords and out" style of search that we've all become accustomed to.

Danny Sullivan, an established search industry insider, had this to say after speaking with Google's Amit Singhai and Ben Gomes.

"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."

Siri is currently the source of the most voice-based search queries coming from Apple's iPhone users of course. Apple choose WolframAlpha to be Siri's semantic search engine likely because they made the switch to a semantic search based algorithm back in 2012. Although, even if Google had been ready at that time, it is doubtful that Apple would have picked them. This appears to be one of those cases when Apple beat everyone to the punch-how long before Microsoft announces Bing's new semantic search capabilities?

Keywords have been a major part of searching, but they have also been a major part of being found. Google already killed off their popular Keyword Tool, and they recently made the move to encrypting all user's searches by default. Combine this with Siri's influence and now Hummingbird and you can see the end of keywords is upon us. Google has been busy with changes to Authorship, and the increased emphasis on Google+. Now with Hummingbird, they are really asking for marketers and webmasters to re-think their SEO strategies.

Where do we go from here? Roland Technology is prepared to lead the way. Contact us today for more information. You can also follow us @RolandTechGroup for breaking news and updates.