New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm

Google has a new search algorithm, the system it uses to sort through all the information it has when you search and come back with answers. It’s called “Hummingbird” and below, what we know about it so far.

Hummingbird is the new search algorithm that Google is using, one that Google says should return better results. Hummingbird looks at page rank of a page, how important links to a page are deemed to be, page quality, words used on it etc.

Google started using Hummingbird about a month ago, it said. Google only announced the change today. Hummingbird is a brand new engine, though it continues to use some of the same parts of the old, like Penguin and Panda. Hummingbird should better focus on the meaning behind the words.

Google said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.

But it does not mean that SEO is dead. According to Google guidance are still the same like high quality content, unique content. Hummingbird just allows Google to process them in new and hopefully better ways.

Google Cut Off Keyword Data - Moves Entirely to Secure Search

Google has switched all searches over to encrypted searches using HTTPS. This means no more keyword data will be passed to site owners. It appears that Google has cut off keyword data altogether.

Encrypted Google searches don't pass the keyword data through to websites, thereby eliminating the ability to track users by their keyword searches. The biggest impact for many site owners has been not being able to segment users by keywords within their web analytics software.

I was so expecting that. Google wants to generate more and more money from Adwords which means they need to make SEO difficult so that companies can move to PPC to get results.

But keyword data from other search engines like Bing still send keyword data through.