Google Hummingbird in a Social Media World

Search and Social

Inside Google’s New Hummingbird Algorithm

#SMBMSP62 – @JLBraaten – @JeffSauer

Who are These Guys?

Josh Braaten• Director of Inbound

Marketing, Collegis Education

• 8 years of experience

• Winner, Best In-House Search Team, 2013 US Search Awards


Jeff Sauer• Web Analytics and SEO

Entrepreneur

• 15 years in Digital

• Serial blogger, speaker and online marketer

What is Google Hummingbird?

1. It’s a big question—let’s start with a quick refresher on how Google search works

2. Next, we need to understand how Google has evolved as a search engine to get how big Hummingbird actually is for Google

3. Only then will we be able to define Hummingbird4. And we’ll give you five steps to succeed with Google’s

most comprehensive algorithm update ever5. Finally, we’ll leave you with some thoughts on where

Google might take Hummingbird in the future


How Google Works


How Google Works, Basically


• Robots crawl the web• Data is sent to the index

Crawl




Crawl




Crawl




Crawl

A Brief History of Google Search




1998: Google launches With new PageRank technology, which determines a website’s relevance by the number of pages, and the

importance of those pages, that link back to the website.



1999-2002: Improving the Basics

Google spent the first few years improving the core search product’s ability to understand human language better,

from synonyms to n-grams.

They also launched a small product called AdWords.



November 2003: Florida Update

Google’s first big update, Florida, kills spammy tactics such as meta tag stuffing and on-page keyword stuffing



2004: Austin, Brandy & Bourbon

Austin targeted on-page spam tactics like white text on a white background.

Brandy introduced latent semantics abilities such as anchor text relevance and “link neighborhoods”

Bourbon affected duplicate content



2005: NoFollow, Local & Personal

Google introduced the NoFollow link attribute to indicate when links don’t count.

Local results and personalized results introduce new dimensions of relevance. Google will continue to build out

vertical search into 2006 with movies, flights weather, sports and more.



2007-2008: Broadening Search

Google releases Universal Search, which sees the end of the “10 blue links” search results.

They release the Google Search App and introduce voice search.



2009: Vince, Caffeine and Instant

Google introduces major update Vince that sees huge and ongoing impact for brands.

Caffeine update helps Google crawl, index the web and integrate with results more quickly. Google considered

Caffeine a complete overhaul and iteration on the original PageRank.

Google Instant allows users to get search results before

they’re even done typing a query.



2010: The Dawn of the Modern Google

Mayday Update was the first major update targeting content quality and a precursor to Panda.

Brand update allows domains to show up more than once in the search results.

Social signals from Twitter and Facebook are used for the first time as a supplemental proxy for links in Google’s

ranking algorithms.



2011: The Year of the PandaOverstock.com penalized for link-building scheme while JCPenney is outed and penalized for buying links. Google

starts enforcing link ethics.

Google rolls out Panda, the most profound update ever related to content quality. Over two dozen iterations of

Panda have since been released.

The hits kept coming with the introduction of +1 and Google+, Schema, authorship markup encrypted search

and Freshness update.

What Was Panda, Again?

• Major update focused on website quality• Low-quality and thin-content sites were heavily

filtered from the search results• Well-known brands with rich, exceptional

content were the big winners while content farms such as About.com, e-How.com and Mahalo.com saw crippling losses• Website quality extends to on-page factors, domain

factors, page speed and content engagement




2012: The Year of the Penguin

Penguin is the other shoe for black-hat SEO. Whereas Panda focused on content quality, Penguin decimated most

shady link building practices. Five updates have been made to Penguin since.

Google also rolled out Knowledge Graph, one of its first major uses of Schema.org markup.

Search+ Your World and the Venice update, which affected local search queries, round out 2012.

What Was Penguin, Again?

• Major update focused on backlinks• Google wages war on “Black Hat” SEOs• Link-building schemes such as link networks, paid

linking, link directories and low-quality link acquisition dry up• Google stresses earning links naturally through earning

attention of the voices that matter in your space• The era of high-quality content marketing and Inbound

Marketing begins• Great search now all but demands social collaboration




2013: The Year of the Hummingbird

Google Hummingbird is the capstone algorithm for search creates a faster, more contextual and more relevant

experience.

Hummingbird is the third major version of the Google algorithm.

Seemingly unrelated advancement to Hummingbird include Conversational Search, fine-tuning of Authorship and

Google Now

What, Exactly, Is Google Hummingbird?


What is Google Hummingbird?

• Modern-day PageRank with link, social and other non-link “popularity” signals• Contextual understanding of what searchers

search for: Entities & Concepts —things, not strings• Advanced personalization that includes who you are,

what you’ve searched for and when you searched for it• Quality algorithms and filters (e.g., Penguin and Panda)

rolled into the main algorithm• Hummingbird is Google’s third major iteration of its core

algorithm after Caffeine and PageRank.


Hummingbird’s PageRank-like Signals


Authority



Authority Links



Authority Links Social Signals




Co-Occurrence




Co-Occurrence Ratings




Co-Occurrence Ratings Reviews

Contextual Understanding, You Say?


Things, Not Strings: Entities & Concepts
















An Example of Personalized Context






Personalized Context in Mobile


“Show Me” Indicates a Map and a Video



Location Retained fromPrevious search for Budapest



We know “There” is Budapestusing Previous Search





Travel Guides Highlighted

Context is Retained Both Ways


“Show Me” Restaurants shows local restaurants

Context is Retained Both Ways


Searching for Budapest showsRestaurants in Budapest

Penguin and Panda are Baked Right In


5 Ways Social Media Marketers Can Win with Hummingbird



Experience need for a better life

1. Map Your Personas, Concepts and Entities

Mapping the College Decision Process




Understand Where Location Plays a Factor




Events are Needed to Form Connections




Sometimes they Need Time




Context is Key!



Borrow and Build Influence to Reach Personas


2. Structure Data to Understand Context


Schema.org

2. Structure Data to Understand Context


3. The Right Content Feeds the Hummingbird


Research Topics Write Outreach

3. The Right Tools Feed the Hummingbird


Tools of the Trade for Building Search Relevancy
















4. Build and Measure Segments for Concepts


Advanced Segments in Google Analytics



Understand Device Distribution



All of this is FREE in Google Analytics

5. Help Your Brand See and Change Reality


Why Can’t I Cancel My Account Online?

5. Help Your Brand See and Change Reality


My House is Freezing, Please

Send Help!

Hummingbird is Google Search

“Hummingbird makes results even more useful and relevant, especially when you ask Google long complex questions. And it affects about 90% of our searches worldwide. Yes, Hummingbird affects about 90% of our searches worldwide.”-Amit Singhal, SVP and head of Google’s core search ranking team


What Will Hummingbird Bring in the Future?


Google GLASS Indexing the World Around Us?


Self Driving Cars


Robots Crawling the Web and the World


Photo Credit BostonDynamics.com

http://www.bostondynamics.com/

Google in the Home


Photo Credit: Nest

https://nest.com/

Cat Videos


Photo Credit: Urs Watcher via Compfight

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23238860@N03/2527755621/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23238860@N03/2527755621/

http://compfight.com/

Thank You
