Hummingbird is the codename given to a significant

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

change in

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

in 2013. Its name was derived from the speed and accuracy of the

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

. The change was announced on September 26, 2013, having already been in use for a month. "Hummingbird" places greater emphasis on

natural language A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages ...

queries, considering context and meaning over individual keywords. It also looks deeper at content on individual pages of a website, with improved ability to lead users directly to the most appropriate page rather than just a website's homepage. The upgrade marked the most significant change to Google search in years, with more "human" search interactions and a much heavier focus on conversation and meaning. Thus, web developers and writers were encouraged to optimize their sites with natural writing rather than forced keywords, and make effective use of technical web development for on-site navigation.

History

Google announced "Hummingbird", a new search

, at a September 2013 press event, having already used the algorithm for approximately one month prior to announcement.

Features

The "Hummingbird" update was the first major update to Google's search algorithm since the 2010 "Caffeine" search architecture upgrade, but even that was limited primarily to improving the indexing of information rather than sorting through information. Amit Singhal, then-search chief at Google, told ''

Search Engine Land Danny Sullivan is an American technologist, journalist, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Search Engine Watch in 1997, one of the earliest online publications about search engine marketing. He also launched ''Search Engine Strategies'', one ...

'' that "Hummingbird" was the most dramatic change of the algorithm since 2001, when he first joined Google. Unlike previous search algorithms, which would focus on each individual word in the search query, "Hummingbird" considers the context of the different words together, with the goal that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words. The name is derived from the speed and accuracy of the

. "Hummingbird" is aimed at making interactions more human, in the sense that the search engine is capable of understanding the concepts and relationships between keywords. It places greater emphasis on page content, making search results more relevant, and looks at the authority of a page, and in some cases the page author, to determine the importance of a website. It uses this information to better lead users to a specific page on a website rather than the standard website homepage.

Search engine optimization changes

Search engine optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of Web traffic, website traffic to a website or a web page from web search engine, search engines. SEO targets unpaid search traffic (usually referred to as ...

changed with the addition of "Hummingbird", with web developers and writers encouraged to use

when writing on their websites rather than using forced keywords. They were also advised to make effective use of technical website features, such as page linking, on-page elements including title tags,

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

addresses and

HTML tags An HTML element is a type of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document component, one of several types of HTML nodes (there are also text nodes, comment nodes and others). The first used version of HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993 ...

, as well as writing high-quality, relevant content without duplication. While keywords within the query still continue to be important, "Hummingbird" adds more strength to long-tailed keywords, effectively catering to the optimization of content rather than just keywords. The use of synonyms has also been optimized; instead of listing results with exact phrases or keywords, Google shows more theme-related results.

References

{{Google LLC Search engine optimization

Hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

Internet properties established in 2013

History

Features

Search engine optimization changes

See also

References