F E E D I N G

Hummingbird?ARE YOU

THE

In September 2013, Google announced that ithad updated a core algorithm influencing the

way that the results of complex queries appearon the Google SERP.

This update was referred to as

"hummingbird".

Hummingbird wasdesigned to betterhandle the type of“question/answer” - style queriesprevalent on mobiledevices.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Google has released noformal documentation onHummingbird, a situationthat has led to a high levelof misinformation aboutit to circulate within theSEO community.

Some experts have gone so far asto claim that keywords and back

links are no longer important;others say that traditional on-

page optimization methods,including rich anchor text, will

make the webmaster subject to aHummingbird-induced penalty.

There is no actual evidence that any of these claims are true.

Google and the other engines arecontinuously working to improve the

accuracy of search results, and much ofthis work involves the incorporation of

information beyond the individual querysession in which the keyword entry is

made.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?While it is impossible for those who are not directly

employed by Google to know the degree to whicheach input by Hummingbird contributes (or

detracts) from a web page's objective authority, itis clear that web publishers need to think more

holistically about the content they generate andoptimize in order to increase the chances that it

will rank favorably on the Google SERP.

Additionally, they may need totake steps to identify themselves

better to Google to gain the searchengine's trust, and organize the

data on their sites in a way that iseasy for Google to understand.

STEP 1. OPTIMIZECONTENT NATURALLY

Hummingbird’s adventshould cause copywriters

to focus on

not just keywords -- whencrafting content.

THEMES

While keywords remain important, thefact that Hummingbird is better able tounderstand the context of a particular

body of text means that writers canwrite more naturally, without

obsessing about keyword density.

STEP 2. DISCLOSEYOUR IDENTITY

While Google has denied that social signals areincorporated into search rankings, it is clear thatthe more Google knows about a given publisher,

the more likely it is that such a publisher (iflegitimate) will be correctly accorded the credit

he/she is due.

At minimum, publishers seeking to take advantageof Hummingbird should have Google Accounts in

order to verify their identities. These accountsprovide both utility (Gmail) and a range of tools

(Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools) that providemajor intelligence value to the publisher when itcomes to site optimization and content strategy.

Additionally, publishers should take steps toincorporate Author Rel to correctly assign

authorship to web documents.

STEP 3. STRUCTUREYOUR DATA

Structuring web documents correctly will enhanceHummingbird's ability to understand and correctly

contextualize web content.

While HTML -- the native language of the Web -- has somelogical structure already built into it (H1, H2, etc.),

publishers should take steps to more granularly tag theirdocuments by applying micro-data format tagging as

specified by schema.org.

Micro-data is a form of meta-information that classifiescontent in terms that Hummingbird can easily understand.

And doing so also will help Google produce accurate "richsnippets" (the ancillary information included below

organic SERP results) in order to give searchers' a betteridea of the actual content of a given Web document as it

appears on Google.

Google's Webmaster Tools includes a very helpful DataHighlighter feature that can help you apply micro-data to

the documents you publish.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen C. BaldwinSteve Baldwin is an author andtech industry veteran who’s been“Working the Web” since 1994.You can learn more about him at

Editor-in-Chief, Didit

StephenCarlBaldwin.com.

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