SEO News

What is Hummingbird? How big a change is it? 

Andrew Girdwood, Media Innovations Director at LBi 

Hummingbird isn’t an algorithm update. It’s a new algorithm and that’s incredible. It’s incredible because it’s a huge change and no one noticed.

Sure, there was some odd behaviour and some ripples over the last month but they’re all too common in search and I don’t know a single expert who looked at them and came to the conclusion Google had dropped its old algorithm entirely in favour of a new.

In fairness, the Hummingbird algorithm uses many of the old rules, weights, filters and systems of the old.

Joe Friedlein, Browser Media: 

Hummingbird is an evolution of Google caffeine, which rolled out in 2010 and was focused primarily at finding fresher results. Like a hummingbird, the new algorithm is intended to be ‘precise and fast’.

It is too early to really tell whether it is going to be a massive game changer but it is claimed that it will affect around 90% of searches, so it is not something to be ignored!

Alex Moss, Co-Founder at 3 Door Digital:

This is going to be a bigger change than people may realise as, especially when it comes to mobile SEO, long tail keywords are becoming more commonplace and are also generally of higher quality than that of someone entering a short tail phrase.

Dan Thornton, Founder at TheWayoftheWeb:

Hummingbird is a major overhaul of the algorithm used for Google’s search results to improve results for longer ‘conversational’ search phrases, more widely known as Semantic Search. The idea is that Google can now understand more of your intent, rather than the keywords being used.

Julia Logan, SEO consultant (better known as Irish Wonder): 

Hummingbird is a major Google algorithm rewrite. The last change of this scale took place in 2001.

From an outside point of view, I think it will take us some time to fully estimate the entire impact this change has on what we see as Google users in the SERPs.

This change, however, seems to be in line with the other latest developments in Google, so we probably should not expect a radical 180 degrees turn. 

Teddie Cowell, Director of SEO at Mediacom: 

The fact that Google chose to announce it from the Menlo Park garage where the company started out shows it is a very significant change, and symbolically the beginning of a new start.

Jimmy McCann, Head of SEO at Search Laboratory: 

Google is trying to give more semantic search results so that the intent behind any given search query is met with results that match that intent and ultimately provide users with a better experience.

For example, if I were to search for ‘’how do I install blue widgets in my house’’, Google would return a set of results that maybe included the words ‘’install’’, ‘’blue widgets’’ & ‘’house’’.

As a text reader, Google could return any number of pages that contain these phrases but do not necessarily relate to the actual query ‘’how do I install blue widgets in my house’’. 

Pre-Hummingbird, I might get some results on blue widgets found at a house party for example. With Hummingbird, Google will be placing greater emphasis on the other words in the search query such as ‘’how do I’’ and ‘’my house’’.

Rather than just matching individual words and phrases to the pages in Google’s index, it is looking at all the words in the query and the relationship between each to understand the intent behind the query more. This in turn should lead to users finding the specific results they need for their query. 

Why does Google feel the need to do this? 

Andrew Girdwood:

Search is changing. Google’s called out Voice search in reference to Hummingbird and as it happens I asked a question of Google about ‘voice PPC’ at ad:tech this month.

Voice search is already possible and impressive at Google. You don’t just search without typing; you search without keywords as the computer remembers the context of your conversation.

[How old is David Tennant] could be your first search and you can follow that with [Who is he married to] and you’ll get the answer for David Tennant’s wife.

I wanted to know if and when Google would make ‘voice search PPC’ and its adjustments available. You never get a straight answer in a situation like that but I got the impression that the search engine was not yet convinced the quality of the experience was good enough to monetise.

Hummingbird, in part, is designed to get the voice search experience up to the point where Google is happy with it. That means more ad options. 

Joe Friedlein:

To be honest, there is nothing new in what Google is trying to do. It has always had a desire to return the ‘best’ results for their users.

‘Best’ can mean different things to different people, but relevancy is always going to be vital and more recent results tend to be more relevant, so Google will always be interested in fresh content that is successfully attracting social signals.  

Alex Moss:

Hummingbird will be in its infancy but once ironed out completely I have confidence it will help both searchers and site owners alike, especially smaller businesses with niche products or services. 

Dan Thornton:

Semantic Search has been growing for several years, and the intended goal of producing highly relevant search results ties in with Google’s longterm strategy.

But it also gets more traction when you consider the massive growth in search on mobile devices, and the arrival of Google Glass.

It’s also a potential weapon against competitor social networks, which in some ways provide a semantic rival, as the answers of a trusted friend can infer meaning which a search engine doesn’t.

Teddie Cowell:

I particularly like the emphasis on intelligence, and the ‘conversational’ reference Google uses to describe Hummingbird and how it would work more efficiently in mobile environments. 

Hummingbird is the natural convergence two roads search has been on, firstly providing more intelligent, accurate and useful information responses, secondly making how we request and access that information as natural to us as possible. 

With an extremely open mind on the future, it’s not unfeasible that interacting with Google will at some point feel so natural and intuitive that it will effectively pass the Turing test. 

Jimmy McCann: 

To be more natural and provide more accurate results, and to keep up with the naturally evolution of how we use search and the internet. As queries get more complicated, Google needs to provide more specific answers.

The key emphasis is on ‘answers’ rather than ‘results’, with Hummingbird paying particular focus to conversational search. Personally it appears like this is a change to reflect and accommodate the ever increasing use of search on mobile devices.

Query types and user intent can be quite different on mobile devices because they often take place in a different setting. Amit also launched a post yesterday that highlighted the development of Google and the importance of conversational search on mobile devices. 

What effect do you think it will have on some site’s rankings, and the role of the SEO?   

Andrew Girdwood:

Interestingly, this comes at the same time Google’s reduced keyword referral data. Voice search has less emphasis on keywords.

I argue that the most important rule of SEO is that people matter and I believe that modern SEO is very much now about interacting with people.  Hummingbird seems to support this approach; moving to humanise search further.

Food for thought: is the predicted rise of voice search and conversations with Google one of the inspirations around the removal of keyword data from natural search?

Alex Moss: 

Ranking will definitely fluctuate over the coming months, but what we could also see is the increased use of structured data by Google in order to serve answers directly within the SERPs. 

Although great for the searcher, the site owner may have to deal with potential reduced traffic if the answer is served in the SERPs.

SEOs will have to ensure that, although you can provide better information within a SERP, that it is enough but not too much that the searcher does not convert into a visitor. 

Teddie Cowell:

As the search journey will be more a conversation with Google taking place within its ecosystem, we will have much less of an idea about which keyphrases and what the overall search chain was that lead to a website. 

The role of individual keyphrases in their own right will continue to diminish, because the entire query journey to an item of content becomes more important.  

This gives real context of the recent removal of all the organic keyphrase referral data, because seeing the final referrals coming through to websites for things like “what’s the address?” and “where can I buy one?”  would be pretty pointless.

Julia Logan: 

Less locally-targeted sites may suffer, but hopefully Google will eventually learn to feel the line between truly local queries and those just looking for information regardless of location.

Considering that there is pretty much a different version of the algorithm for different verticals, it all depends on the actual implementation of the Hummingbird in different verticals, we have seen lately that Google can be pretty flexible.

SEO is certainly not going away, SEOs will probably become more specialised in certain verticals to be better at them but we have seen this happening already so this is not earth shattering.

The key point for us as SEOs is the Hummingbird is still based on links, which still play one of the most important parts. They serve both navigational and discovery purposes, and had been doing so long before Google has come to exist. 

Have you noticed any changes over the past month as a result of this? 

Andrew Girdwood:

There are a few ranking changes that now make more sense to me. It’s the benefit of hindsight. By and large this change has been impressively seamless.

One of the reasons why so few SEOs noticed the big change is that ranking reports and traffic tend to watch the dominate keyword phrases. Hummingbird is very much about making the long tail searches a better experience and few brands or agencies track those.

Joe Friedlein:

So far, I can’t say that I have seen any concrete evidence of big changes as a direct result of the Hummingbird update but there is an ongoing trend of content sites performing well and sites that have been thin on content but relied on bulk link building have suffered. 

Dan Thornton:

It’s always important to avoid mistaking correlation for causation, particularly when the change was made without any announcement, and all other potential reasons need to be ruled out.

We haven’t noticed any particularly large fluctuations with any client websites, but we have seen a couple of internal test and project sites which suggest they were affected by the algorithm change.

Julia Logan: 

I have noticed several things. First: this is not a panacea against search spam. In fact, some of my recent experiments have shown that it has become easier to rank spammy sites, at least in some niches.

Second: I have no direct proof but it looks very much like Google has started putting the database collected via its disavow tool to use in order to detect sites getting links from known sources of ‘unnatural’ links before the sites in question even get any benefit from those links.

This is quite a scary development as

1. We have no way of telling which sites have been disavowed.
2. It is not known in what way exactly Google is using this database.

I have posted about this issue in detail earlier this month. As for search results relevancy, including some of the ‘conversational’ queries, often they still raise a brow, like the one below but, as with any algorithm being rolled out these days, this is of course work in progress, and one thing for sure is that we are living in very interesting times.

Improved performance seen as main benefit of real-time bidding

• Our new Online Advertisers Survey Report asked 1,000 advertisers and publishers about the benefits of real-time bidding and found that more than half of advertisers see improved performance (62%) as the main advantage.
• This was followed by reduced wastage (54%), lower cost per acquisition (53%) and better targeting capabilities (46%).
• This is the third Online Advertising Survey Report, produced in association with advertising technology company Rubicon Project. 

What do you see as the advantages of real-time bidding?

Showrooming is rife in the UK

• A new survey from Microsoft has found that showrooming is rife in the UK for ‘considered’ purchases – 42% of people look at electronic goods in-store before buying online from a different retailer, compared to 27% in US. 36% look in-store before buying online from the same retailer.
• In the UK consumers are also much less impulsive in-store – 81% buy only the electronic item they went in for and nothing else, compared to 57% in US (where 34% buy other electronics after buying what they actually wanted in the first place).

M-commerce accounts for all online growth

• New data from the IMRG and Capgemini shows that mobile devices now account for all online sales growth as the amount of sales through desktop computers has plateaued.
• Though total online retail has averaged around 15% growth since Q1 2011 figures excluding mobile have actually seen a steady decline before flat-lining in Q2 2013.
• The data also shows that 23% of all online retail sales in Q2 2013 came from mobile devices.

Consumers 7% more likely to click on ads during the weekend

• Consumers are 7% more likely to click on a display ad during the weekend, with a significant rise on Saturday and Sunday compared to the rest of the week.  At the same time, the average cost for online advertising at the weekend was found to be lowest, around 12% lower than during the week.
• The findings are revealed in Adform’s Quarterly Media Barometer which measures consumer trends and engagement with online display advertising.
• Overall, the report also revealed that brands raised their real-time bidding (RTB) advertising spend by 92% through the summer.  This is despite the rising costs from publishers, who saw their CPMs increased by 30% across the quarter.

Mobile capabilities are top priorities for marketers

• A survey of 400 US companies found that 40% of respondents said that mobile is a top priority for their brand and core to their overall marketing strategy.
• Additionally, 80% of respondents in the MMA survey cited that mobile is not only transformational for their companies, but also strategic for their careers to stay on the cutting edge of emerging trends and technology.
• The survey identified that data offers significant value when paired with mobile as 61% of companies plan to invest more in data capabilities over the next year.

UK mobile sharing overtakes desktop

• Analysis of RadiumOne’s first-party data has found that the UK is the first country to share more on mobile platforms than on desktops. Peak sharing on mobile devices in the UK rose above 50 per cent for the first time in May 2013, according to analysis of RadiumOne’s first-party data.
• By August, consumer sharing in the UK was dominated by mobile devices with average desktop sharing accounting for just under a third of all sharing (32%).
• As recently as November 2012, mobile sharing only peaked at 28% of all UK sharing despite the growth in popularity of smartphones.
• The USA is behind with peak mobile sharing only edging past desktop (51%) just one day a week, while desktops remain the preferred sharing platform during the working week.

US search spend increases

• IgnitionOne’s latest quarterly report has found that US search spend in Q3 was up 13% when compared to Q3 2012. However total search spend was a decrease quarter over quarter (QoQ), which is expected due to seasonality.
• Google Enhanced Campaigns had a noticeable effect on CPC for search advertising on tablets which were up 32% – more than double the increase for PCs. Enhanced Campaigns also are suspected to be responsible for the drop in CTR for tablets compared to last year at this time, which were down 20%.

Mobile ad budgets increase

• Mobile marketing budgets have increased by 142% since 2011 and one-in-five US marketers expect to increase their mobile spend by more than 50% over the next couple of years, according to a new IAB survey of 300 organisations.
• The survey also found that 74% of brand marketers expect their mobile spend to increase in the next two years, including 19% who expect budgets to increase by more than 50%.

Mondelez opts for investment in social

• Snack foods giant Mondelez has said that it plans to invest heavily in social marketing after running a campaign which resulted in the same purchase consideration as television but at one third of the cost.
• Mondelez used Promoted Posts, daily posts, user feedback and user-generated content as part of its “Have a Fling” promotion for Cadbury’s Creme Egg.
• The result was that brand consideration on TV increased by 20% over three months, while the increase attributable to Facebook rose 18%.
• Furthermore consumers exposed to both TV and Facebook were 66% more likely to purchase than the expected combined effect of both channels.

Anyone know if digital works?

• Only 9% of marketing professionals strongly agreed with the statement that they “know their digital marketing is working,” according to a new survey from Adobe.
• The survey of 1,000 US marketers found that just under half (48%) of digital marketers feel highly proficient in digital marketing.
• Furthermore most digital marketers don’t have formal training; 82% learn on the job.

Posted by MackenzieFogelson

With new tools introduced so regularly, it’s easy for marketers to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out which ones are most effective for their own work. That focus, though, shifts our attention from what really matters: setting the right goals for our companies. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Mackenzie Fogelson walks us through the five-stage process she uses to make sure her team’s attention is on what really matters.

For reference, here’s a still of this week’s whiteboard!

Video Transcription

Hey there, Moz community! I’m so excited to be here with you today. I wanted to share something with you that has been really powerful for the businesses we’ve been working with in the last year or so about building community. It’s a concept that we call “goals not tools,” and it works in this pyramid format where you start with your goals, you move on to KPIs, you develop a strategy, you execute that strategy, and then you analyze your data. And this is something that has been really powerful and helped businesses really grow. So I’m going to walk you through it here.

We start down at the bottom with goals. So the deal with goals is that you want to make sure that you’re setting goals for your entire business, not just for SEO or social media or content marketing, because you’re trying to grow your whole business. So keep your focus there. Then once you develop your goals, and those goals might be to improve customer communication or you want to become a thought leader. Whatever your goal is, that’s where you’re going to set it.

Then you move on to determining what your key performance indicators are and what you’re going to use to actually measure the fact that you may or may not be reaching your goals. So in terms of KPIs, it’s really going to depend on your business. When we determine KPIs with companies, we sit down and we have that discussion with them before we develop the strategy, and that helps us to have a very authentic and realistic discussion about expectations and how this is all going to work and what kind of data they’re expecting to see so that we’re proving that we’re actually making a difference in their business.

So once you’ve determined those KPIs, then you move on to developing a creative strategy, a creative way to meet those goals and to measure it the way you’ve determined in your KPIs. So this is your detailed roadmap, and it’s two to three months at a time. A lot of companies will go for maybe 12 months and try to get that high level overview of where they’re going for the year, and that’s fine. Just make sure that you’re not detailing out everything that you’re doing for the next year because it makes it harder to be agile. So we’d recommend two- to-three month iterations at a time. Go through, test things, and see how that works.

During your strategy development you’re also going to select the tools that you’re going to use. Maybe it’s Facebook, maybe it’s SEO, maybe it’s content marketing, maybe it’s email marketing, PPC. There’s all kinds of tools that could be used, and they don’t all have to be digital. So you just need to be creative and determine what you need to plan out so that you can reach the goals that you’ve set.

Then once you’ve got your strategy developed, that’s really some of the hardest part until you get to execution. Then you’re actually doing all the work. You need to be consistent. You need to make sure that you’re staying focused and following that strategy that you’ve set. You also want to test things because you want as much data as possible so that you can determine if things are working or not. So make sure that during execution there are going to be things that come up, emergent things, shiny things, exciting things. So what you’ll have to do is weigh whether those things wait for the next iteration in two to three months, or whether you deviate your plan and you integrate those at the time that they come up.

So once you’re through execution, then really what you’re doing is analyzing that data that you’ve collected. You’re trying to determine: Should we spend more time on something? Should we pull something? Should we determine if something else needs to completely change our plans so that we’re making sure that we’re adding value? So analysis is probably the most important part because you’re always going to want to be looking at the data.

So in this whole process, what we always do is try to make sure that we’re focusing on two questions, and the most important one is: Where can we add more value? So always be thinking about what you’re doing, and if you can’t answer the value question, you know, “Why are we doing this? Does this provide value for our customers or something internal that you’re working on? If you can’t answer that question, it’s probably not something valuable, and you don’t need to spend your time on it. Go somewhere else where you’re adding the value.

Then the last question is where you can make the biggest difference in your business, because that’s what this is all about is growing your business. So if you stay focused on goals, not tools, it’s going to be really easy to do that.

Thanks for having me today, Moz. Hope I helped you out. Let me know in the questions if you need any assistance.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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