There has been a lot going on over the past few weeks at Google:
- They unveiled their NEW Logo (a ‘flat’ version of the current logo).
- Google celebrated their 15th Birthday .
- And perhaps the most important topic in the SEO world was the revelation of Google’s latest Search Engine Update had been released, named Google ‘Hummingbird’
All eyes have been on Hummingbird with many of us asking what is it? How will it affect my current SEO? And so on. I’ve gathered up some of the latest news/details here to help give a bit of insight about this change along with some of my personal opinions.
- Hummingbird is not considered an Algorithm Update – rather, a new Algorithm altogether to help return better search results and enhance user experience (especially with more in-depth and complicated search queries). Check out MOZ’s Google Algorithm Change History to see how often/when Google has had an algorithm change.
- Why the name Hummingbird? Reports say it’s because of the update’s emphasis on precision and speed.
- Is SEO dead? Every time a new update comes about the SEO world tends to go a bit apocalyptic. I, for one, do not believe SEO will ever ‘die’ but will simply continue to evolve forcing us SEOers to roll with the changes. Hummingbird has not given us any indication that SEO is not an effective tactic.
- Although we were just informed of this update within the past week or so – it actually was put into place a few months back – we simply weren’t told about it until now.
- Hummingbird is the largest update in the Google Search Algorithm since 2001.
- Will my rank drop? No, that is if you haven’t noticed anything within the past month or so when the update was officially released. If it did drop then it could have been due to Hummingbird or one of the many tweaks/updates the algorithm sees per year (Sources say there are about 500-600 tweaks per year)
- Bottom line: Don’t panic and keep moving forward with high-quality, rich, relevant content – that’s what Google wants. Danny Sullivan was quoted:
” No, SEO is not yet again dead. In fact, Google’s saying there’s nothing new or different SEOs or publishers need to worry about. Guidance remains the same, it says: have original, high-quality content. Signals that have been important in the past remain important; Hummingbird just allows Google to process them in new and hopefully better ways. “
Looking for more details? Visit Search Engine Land’s article on the matter, also there was a nice write up over at Forbes.
Do you believe your site has been affected? Please feel free to share your details!
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Tim Dugan | WebServicesCT.com
About Tim Dugan
