Google has just turned 15, and on the occasion of the company’s “birthday” the new Hummingbird algorithm was announced . This name was chosen, in Italian hummingbird, because the precision and speed that distinguish the flight of this nice little bird ( for those who will be penalized it will certainly be rather unattractive … ), want to be the hallmarks of the new Google algorithm.
Hummingbird is not a simple update like penguin , panda and all google algorithm updates have been done in the past, BUT it is an evolution of the process that generates the search engine results. The strength of this Google revolution is “conversational search” . The goal, in fact, of the new algorithm is to understand on a more human basis and provide results that take into account the entire search query rather than considering only a few key terms. In other words, Google moves away from typical keyword searches and approaches the understanding of meaningful sentences.
Wanting to give a practical example if today to find a shoe shop near home we type on google: milano shoe store xxxxx area with the new algorithm it is possible to ask for “place to buy shoes near where I am”. Until recently, a search engine would have produced results focusing only on shoes to buy and milan . Hummingbird, on the other hand, is able to interpret both the phrase “close to where I am”, obviously it will be necessary not to set filters on your position, and to understand that the term place indicates a physical place where you can shop.
The Google staff argues that from the SEO point of view this new algorithm should not cause any upheavals, apparently it has been launched for more than a month and has not seen large penalties. The guidelines remain unchanged: original and high quality content.
At this point we just have to see if Hummingbird will actually be the first step towards an intelligent search engine in the full sense of the term.
