Google Hummingbird is an algorithmic update that improves the search experience. Launched in August 2013, Hummingbird attempts to be more intuitive about what a user is really searching for. In the past Google's search results were largely based on guesses about what the robots thought the user meant based on keywords. Now Hummingbird considers the context of a query with the intent of refining and speeding up searches. This new approach to search outdates certain thinking about SEO blogging techniques.
How Hummingbird Affects Blogging
Blogging historically has been about sharing expertise in a friendly memorable way. If the information you share in blogs attracts a wide audience, it could be information extracted by Hummingbird that is displayed as a search result without providing a link to the original content. In many ways, Hummingbird is competing with blogs and websites themselves for attention, since Hummingbird's function is to answer user queries as quickly as possible. By providing answers instead of just links, Hummingbird draws from a growing knowledge database. Bloggers are now pressured to be more intense and memorable thought leaders.
A New Era for Search
The changes marked a new beginning for Google, which had not made so many radical changes to its algorithm in over a decade. Even though Google Hummingbird is like a complete overhaul, it still incorporates updates of the past such as Panda and Penguin. A new technology that it introduces is "conversational search," which uses natural language and semantic search to help understand the context of a query. Hummingbird also works for Chrome users as a tool for using the human voice to ask the search engine a question.
It's no longer the era in which a web page having matching words to a query will gain accidental success. It is more likely that Google Hummingbird will answer a user's question before it provides links to random sites that happen to use similar keywords. Hummingbird marks a major development in the search for knowledge, which outdates the search for just matching words that might be what users are searching for.
Hummingbird Effects
If any sites were affected by Hummingbird they would have felt it by now. Chances are it had minimum adverse impact on sites since it was more geared for improving the search experience than penalizing sites. Google will likely continue it's exploration into the meaning behind words as the new basis for search.
