Digital Marketing Insights

Google has brought us a new search algorithm. This algorithm gives soul to the Google crawlers, and brings in the best search results; the ones we eagerly look for.

The latest algorithm, ‘Hummingbird’ is rightly named as there are number of qualities of this bird that can be correlated to Google crawlers. It is one of the smallest and fastest acrobatic flyers in the fauna, it can also fly backwards and change direction almost instantly; a very good feature for a crawler.

When Google was asked about this choice for a name, they simply said, “for being fast and precise”.

Remember how the search used to happen earlier? Put in a keyword and Google would serve a page which had this keyword maximum number of times.

Times changed, new algorithm updates came in and then there were algorithms independent of the ‘number of keywords’ and were more concerned with relevancy, authority, accuracy, duplicity and other related important features.

Say for instance, you typed ‘delicious pizza’; the leading pizza company pages would show up as results. But what will happen now, post this update is that the search results will include pages which actually talk about the features of a delicious pizza. This will be followed by pages with details of how a delicious pizza is prepared and then will show the pages of companies that are famous for this delicacy.

Here’s an example screenshot:

Search results will also be affected by local search because Google will remember your location and show you the outlet nearest to you.
The Google search engine will now give importance to the whole sentence and its meaning in totality.

It will go beyond just looking at keywords, take into consideration the meaning of the whole sentence, and throw up results accordingly.

According to Google Search Chief Amit Singhal, “Hummingbird makes results more useful and relevant, especially when you ask Google long, complex questions”. For example let’s say you want to compare two things: How much saturated fat is there in butter versus how much fat is in olive oil? Now you can simply tell Google: ‘Compare butter with olive oil’, and it will give you relevant results. Isn’t it great?

Here’s an example:

Practical Implementation of Hummingbird algorithm.

If a keyword is selected; then the content, and the page as a whole, have to be keyword centric. In other words, the keyword must be chosen keeping in mind the kind of content you provide. All the other details will become secondary. More related and useful content with other such related links and images is a good practice.

I suppose the term ‘optimization’ in SEO will soon be replaced with ‘continuous updating.’ Continuous update in terms of adding content with more information a user would be looking for, more relevancy and higher degree of user friendliness.

Keyword relevancy and holistic information on it will now take prime importance while creating a website.

What impact will this have on the digital marketing strategy? How will it change how content for websites is written? Has your digital marketing company informed you of the implications that this update might have on SEO ranking results?

Share your insights in the comments!

Atish Hemade