Google is no stranger to algorithm tweaks and Adwords changes, but the recent Hummingbird update and full-on move towards semantic search represent the company’s biggest search shifts since the early 2000s. Even much-feared updates like Panda and Penguin pale in comparison to these changes. In this post, we’ll talk about three recent Google changes and touch on what they mean for your Internet marketing efforts. Don’t worry: As always, we’ll leave you with some useful takeaways to help you position your business for an uncertain but exciting future.
Hummingbird: Googling the Future
Hummingbird has gotten the lion’s share of the public’s attention, so we’ll start here. Previous updates like Penguin and Panda had certainly made substantive changes to the ways in which Google’s search engine indexed and ranked sites. For instance, Penguin identified new black-hat techniques and increased the “penalties” for such tactics. By contrast, Hummingbird uses an entirely new algorithm to translate search queries into relevant results. If Penguin and Panda were the virtual equivalent of oil changes, Hummingbird is analogous to a wholesale engine rebuild.
In a nutshell, Hummingbird represents the most advanced iteration of an evolving system known as “semantic search.” Unlike the keyword-driven algorithms that Google once used – and that search engines like Bing and Yahoo will continue to use until they release Hummingbird-like updates of their own – semantic search aims to uncover the actual intent or meaning behind everyday search queries. In some circles, this is known as “natural language search.”