Following Panda and Penguin updates, Google again surprised everyone with its another beast- Google Hummingbird Update. Hummingbird is the all-new algorithm that is created out of 200 factors that can impact search and ranking. Announced in 2013, Hummingbird sparked a ‘conversational search.’ This is specifically designed to concentrate on the phrase’s meaning, instead of particular keywords. This was an outcome of people using voice when searching on the smartphone. Let’s say, a person searching, “The best place for couples in Chicago?’ Hummingbird will recognize that by ‘place’ the user would be fond of results by showing “Buckingham Fountain, Promontory Point, or Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.” With the help of Hummingbird, you can witness results from Knowledge Graph technology It is believed that these changes were mandatory for Google’s voice search to perform more efficiently.
Probably, you need to create content that provides answers to user’s search queries instead of ranking a specific keyword. Google has been very upfront with its Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird updates. It encouraged webmasters to publish content that is top-notch. Google thrives on the ambition of providing answers to people surfing the INTERNET. If you’re proficient enough to generate content that answers people’s queries, then trust me you’re on the right track.
Few local businesses may have encountered certain temporary issues with respect to spammy one-boxes thereby hitting their local search engine visibility. No doubt, most websites encountered negative effects from this update.
So if your website experienced a fall in traffic or rankings lately, then it’s not due to Hummingbird update. Go through the entire Google updates list. It might be because of Panda and Penguin.
The most practical approach for website owners is to make certain that natural language sparks in the content. Hummingbird acts as a bridge between the old, spammy practices and advance SEO which prefers to voice natural language of readers. When your content goes hand-in-hand with searcher intent, there’s a chance to not only rank organically and locally, but also get placed in a SERP feature like an answer box or knowledge panel. In the present scenario, aiding the intent of the searcher must be on the top of your list of SEO priorities, and obviously you would like to use an amalgamation of direct interaction with your end-user, keyword research, and topical research in order to assist your website to enhance its visibility.
Google attempts to make the web a better and more productive place. Slowly and steadily, content mills, links wheels and same black hat search -improving strategies are vanishing. Believe it or not, this has been in progression phase for years now, Hummingbird is not an immediate fix for all the inappropriate stuff, it has been steadily evolving for ages.
In the end, time will dictate, but all in prospect, this particular update will soon take over the entire web. Don’t you wish to be at the front of the shift?