Posted by September 26 will be remembered as the day on which Google announced the biggest search engine algorithm modification since 2000. The change was unveiled just a day before the company celebrated its 15th birthday.
What’s New?
Google Senior Vice President Amit Singhal introduced the algorithm change that is called Hummingbird and that will affect nearly 90 percent of the Google search volume.
The original Google strategy was to provide results on the basis of keywords that people used to find information. Now, the search engine will try to examine the relationship between things, since the number of people asking complex questions when using the search engine is increasing.
Search engine results will try to match the meaning of the search query rather than correspond to the keyword or phrase being used. According to Google representatives, Hummingbird was launched a month ago and the majority of search engine users failed noticing a difference.
The Google algorithm will still perform searches in the same way. The manner in which queries are analyzed is going to be different, the official company statement said.
What does Google Hummingbird Mean for SEO Efforts?
Past updates like Google Penguin and Google Panda wrecked havoc among the SEO experts. Many websites were penalized for using low quality backlinks and hosting duplicate or poorly written content.
It is only logical for webmasters to panic about the impact Google Hummingbird is going to have on website optimization.
Google announced that website owners and publishers have nothing to worry about. According to the official statement, Hummingbird will keep the way in which websites are being optimized unchanged.
Websites that have well-written and original content are going to maintain their good positioning, despite the new algorithm. Reputation establishment and proper social media participation are also going to continue affecting the world of search engine optimization.
PageRank and other factors that affect website placement among search engine results remain intact, as well.
Website Traffic and the Hummingbird Effect
Some website owners have already complained that they lost a portion of their traffic over the past month. Now they wonder whether Google Hummingbird is to blame.
It is possible for Hummingbird to have affected search traffic but Google representatives claim that many other factors could have been responsible for the negative development. Hummingbird is mainly expected to affect the experience of Google users without interfering seriously with the work of webmasters and website owners.
Worried about Google Hummingbird? Want to get more content for your website and improve its positioning? Contact us today and we can discuss the specifics of your project.