At ExtraDigital our search marketing strategy is driven by an understanding of Hummingbird. So here are some hummingbird facts. And some Google Hummingbird facts.
- Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds in the world.
- Hummingbirds spend most of their life perching
- Hummingbirds appear brightly coloured – due to iridescent colouring
- A hummingbird’s tongue is grooved like the shape of a “W”, to help lap up nectar from flowers.
- A hummingbird’s brain is 4.2% of its body weight, the largest proportion in the bird kingdom.
- There are more than 300 types or species of hummingbirds.
Google hummingbird shares some of the above features. This is the name given to a change in the search algorithm used by Google to rank search results. Understanding this is important to get the best results from any online marketing.
Google Hummingbird started small – in fact it was introduced with no publicity in August 2013, but now has a major impact on search results.
Google Hummingbird takes more notice of mobile than previous search did, and it is Hummingbird that has driven responsive website development. Yet hummingbirds are not always mobile – and spend most of their time perching.
Google Hummingbird considers context, so simple keywords are less important than context. You see this with different results being returned in different areas of the page, and varying importance given to news, image, video or shopping results. The rules behind this are very complex made of up vast numbers of data analysis, and moving towards intelligent behaviour.
