What is Google Hummingbird Algorithm?
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 10:00 am
Google Hummingbird was the code name for a major change in Google's search algorithm in 2013. It was named after Hummingbird's speed and accuracy. The update was implemented in August 2013 and released a month later, in September 2013.
The Hummingbird algorithm places more emphasis on natural language queries, considering context and meaning rather than individual keywords. It also looks more deeply into the content of each page of the website, and is able to directly guide users to the most appropriate page, rather than just the homepage of the website.
This upgrade is the most significant change to Google Search in usa phone list many years, and the search interaction is more "human", focusing more on conversation and meaning. Therefore, web developers and authors are encouraged to optimize their websites with natural writing style instead of forced keywords, and effectively use technical web development for site navigation.
history
Google announced its new search algorithm, Hummingbird, at a press conference in September 2013, after the company had been using the algorithm for about a month.
feature
The Hummingbird update was the first major update to Google's search algorithm since the "Caffeine" search architecture upgrade in 2010, but even then, the update was primarily limited to improving the indexing of information rather than the ranking of it.
Amit Singhal, then Google's head of search, said Hummingbird was the most significant change to the algorithm since he first joined Google in 2001. Unlike previous search algorithms, Hummingbird considers the context of different words at the same time, with the goal of making pages that match the meaning perform better, rather than pages that match just a few words. The name comes from Hummingbird's speed and accuracy.
Hummingbird is designed to make the interaction more human, meaning the search engine understands the concepts and relationships of keywords. It places more weight on page content to make search results more relevant, and considers the authority of the page and sometimes the author of the page to determine the importance of the site. It uses this information to better direct users to specific pages on the site rather than the standard site homepage.
The impact of the Hummingbird algorithm on SEO
With the addition of Hummingbird, SEO changed, and web developers and writers were encouraged to use natural language on their websites instead of using forced keywords. They were also advised to effectively utilize technical website features such as page links, page elements (including title tags, URL addresses, and HTML tags), and to write high-quality, relevant, and non-repetitive content.
While keywords in the query are still important, the Hummingbird algorithm adds more weight to long-tail keywords, effectively catering to content optimization rather than just keywords. The use of synonyms has also been optimized; Google no longer lists results containing exact phrases or keywords, but instead displays more topically related results.
Google Hummingbird is a rewrite of the Google algorithm that consciously anticipated search needs on mobile devices, specifically by enabling conversational search.
Hummingbird laid the foundation for major advances in search. Google has never published an explanation of what Hummingbird was. However, there is a record of Google employees explaining what it was.
Let’s take a look at what Google’s Hummingbird update did, how it impacted natural language search, and what Google employees and SEO industry experts think about it.
Complete rewrite of the core algorithm
Matt Cutts, a former Google software engineer, described Hummingbird as a rewrite of the entire core algorithm.
This doesn't mean it's a completely new algorithm, but rather that the core algorithm was rewritten to make it better at its job.
In a video interview on December 4, 2013, Matt Cutts stated that Hummingbird was a rewrite of Google's core search algorithm.
Matt Cutts explains:
“Hummingbird is a rewrite of the core search algorithm. To do a better job of matching user queries to documents, especially for natural language queries, you know the queries are going to be longer, have more words in them, and sometimes those words are important, and sometimes they’re not.”
Some people believe that Hummingbird is part of Google's core algorithm, just as Panda and Penguin are part of the core algorithm.
Matt Cutts made it clear that Hummingbird is not part of the core algorithm. It is a rewrite of the core algorithm.
One of the goals of the rewrite was to make the core algorithm better at matching queries to web pages and able to handle longer, conversational search queries.
When Hummingbird came out, some in the search community suggested that it might be a good idea to change the way content was written to fit the way searchers searched.
A common suggestion is to switch the article to use more phrases, such as "how to" .
Although this advice is well-intentioned, it is wrong.
What Hummingbird did was enable search engines to understand long conversational search queries.
In Matt’s case, Google ignored certain words in order to better understand the true meaning of the search query.
In the old algorithm, Google would try to rank pages that contained all the words in the search query, matching the search query and the page word for word .
Matt’s explanation is that Google is now ignoring certain words in order to understand the query, and then using that understanding to rank pages.
The Hummingbird algorithm allowed Google to rely less on matching keywords to web pages and more on the meaning of the search query .
This is what he meant when he began explaining hummingbirds:
“Just to better match user queries to documents, especially natural language queries…”
Is there a patent for the Hummingbird algorithm?
Some of the things Hummingbird does with search queries is rewrite them using techniques like query expansion.
For example, there are multiple ways to search for the same thing using different terms.
Five different search queries can equal one search query, the only difference being that they use different words that are synonyms of each other.
Through features like query expansion, Google can use synonyms to expand the pool of potential pages to rank.
After the Hummingbird algorithm, Google no longer matches keywords in search queries exactly with keywords on web pages .
This is a change that started to appear after the Hummingbird update.
Bill Slawski wrote a patent describing what the Hummingbird algorithm was allegedly able to do, particularly with regard to natural language queries.
Bill wrote in his article:
“When the Hummingbird patent came out on Google’s 15th anniversary, it felt like a complete overhaul of Google’s infrastructure, just like the Caffeine update, which changed the way Google’s index worked.
One of the things we were told is that the process behind Hummingbird is to rewrite the queries more intelligently.”
The Hummingbird algorithm places more emphasis on natural language queries, considering context and meaning rather than individual keywords. It also looks more deeply into the content of each page of the website, and is able to directly guide users to the most appropriate page, rather than just the homepage of the website.
This upgrade is the most significant change to Google Search in usa phone list many years, and the search interaction is more "human", focusing more on conversation and meaning. Therefore, web developers and authors are encouraged to optimize their websites with natural writing style instead of forced keywords, and effectively use technical web development for site navigation.
history
Google announced its new search algorithm, Hummingbird, at a press conference in September 2013, after the company had been using the algorithm for about a month.
feature
The Hummingbird update was the first major update to Google's search algorithm since the "Caffeine" search architecture upgrade in 2010, but even then, the update was primarily limited to improving the indexing of information rather than the ranking of it.
Amit Singhal, then Google's head of search, said Hummingbird was the most significant change to the algorithm since he first joined Google in 2001. Unlike previous search algorithms, Hummingbird considers the context of different words at the same time, with the goal of making pages that match the meaning perform better, rather than pages that match just a few words. The name comes from Hummingbird's speed and accuracy.
Hummingbird is designed to make the interaction more human, meaning the search engine understands the concepts and relationships of keywords. It places more weight on page content to make search results more relevant, and considers the authority of the page and sometimes the author of the page to determine the importance of the site. It uses this information to better direct users to specific pages on the site rather than the standard site homepage.
The impact of the Hummingbird algorithm on SEO
With the addition of Hummingbird, SEO changed, and web developers and writers were encouraged to use natural language on their websites instead of using forced keywords. They were also advised to effectively utilize technical website features such as page links, page elements (including title tags, URL addresses, and HTML tags), and to write high-quality, relevant, and non-repetitive content.
While keywords in the query are still important, the Hummingbird algorithm adds more weight to long-tail keywords, effectively catering to content optimization rather than just keywords. The use of synonyms has also been optimized; Google no longer lists results containing exact phrases or keywords, but instead displays more topically related results.
Google Hummingbird is a rewrite of the Google algorithm that consciously anticipated search needs on mobile devices, specifically by enabling conversational search.
Hummingbird laid the foundation for major advances in search. Google has never published an explanation of what Hummingbird was. However, there is a record of Google employees explaining what it was.
Let’s take a look at what Google’s Hummingbird update did, how it impacted natural language search, and what Google employees and SEO industry experts think about it.
Complete rewrite of the core algorithm
Matt Cutts, a former Google software engineer, described Hummingbird as a rewrite of the entire core algorithm.
This doesn't mean it's a completely new algorithm, but rather that the core algorithm was rewritten to make it better at its job.
In a video interview on December 4, 2013, Matt Cutts stated that Hummingbird was a rewrite of Google's core search algorithm.
Matt Cutts explains:
“Hummingbird is a rewrite of the core search algorithm. To do a better job of matching user queries to documents, especially for natural language queries, you know the queries are going to be longer, have more words in them, and sometimes those words are important, and sometimes they’re not.”
Some people believe that Hummingbird is part of Google's core algorithm, just as Panda and Penguin are part of the core algorithm.
Matt Cutts made it clear that Hummingbird is not part of the core algorithm. It is a rewrite of the core algorithm.
One of the goals of the rewrite was to make the core algorithm better at matching queries to web pages and able to handle longer, conversational search queries.
When Hummingbird came out, some in the search community suggested that it might be a good idea to change the way content was written to fit the way searchers searched.
A common suggestion is to switch the article to use more phrases, such as "how to" .
Although this advice is well-intentioned, it is wrong.
What Hummingbird did was enable search engines to understand long conversational search queries.
In Matt’s case, Google ignored certain words in order to better understand the true meaning of the search query.
In the old algorithm, Google would try to rank pages that contained all the words in the search query, matching the search query and the page word for word .
Matt’s explanation is that Google is now ignoring certain words in order to understand the query, and then using that understanding to rank pages.
The Hummingbird algorithm allowed Google to rely less on matching keywords to web pages and more on the meaning of the search query .
This is what he meant when he began explaining hummingbirds:
“Just to better match user queries to documents, especially natural language queries…”
Is there a patent for the Hummingbird algorithm?
Some of the things Hummingbird does with search queries is rewrite them using techniques like query expansion.
For example, there are multiple ways to search for the same thing using different terms.
Five different search queries can equal one search query, the only difference being that they use different words that are synonyms of each other.
Through features like query expansion, Google can use synonyms to expand the pool of potential pages to rank.
After the Hummingbird algorithm, Google no longer matches keywords in search queries exactly with keywords on web pages .
This is a change that started to appear after the Hummingbird update.
Bill Slawski wrote a patent describing what the Hummingbird algorithm was allegedly able to do, particularly with regard to natural language queries.
Bill wrote in his article:
“When the Hummingbird patent came out on Google’s 15th anniversary, it felt like a complete overhaul of Google’s infrastructure, just like the Caffeine update, which changed the way Google’s index worked.
One of the things we were told is that the process behind Hummingbird is to rewrite the queries more intelligently.”