A Web Development Blog by TCG: How Google Hummingbird is Revolutionizing Content Development in the Legal Industry

Google Hummingbird was released in September 2013. For those who have not yet heard of this new way of interacting with users.

Google claims that its Hummingbird algorithm offers a more natural way to use its search engines. In the past month Hummingbird was quietly deployed before any announcement was made. Google senior vice president Amit Singhal said that this is the largest algorithm update in three years, the last update was three years before the "caffeine plan."

Singhal said that the algorithm can make use of more complex search requests and has a better understanding of the concept of human language, rather than a few scattered words. This new algorithm is a big step forward in the Internet history as searches will be more "human friendly" than ever. The algorithm is designed for conversational or semantic search. Google uses its knowledge graph to answer questions users type as a query For example, a query like "how tall is Mount Everest" would return the search result: 29,029' (8,848 m) Mount Everest, Elevation. Although the knowledge graph is a big part of the hummingbird update, it is not the only thing affected. The hummingbird algorithm is estimated to impact 90% of all searches, impacting billions of pages on the web. This means that sites that are more likely to answer the users questions might be favored. With a growing number of mobile users, the hummingbird algorithm had voice search in mind. Hummingbird was designed to understand the users intent and provide the best possible results.

A recent article speaks how Google Hummingbird can change a content developers writing.

How Does This Lead To Revolution?

Content development has been growing as a marketing tool for the last few years and marketers have learned on how to optimize content for search-engine crawlers. SEO experts have focused on building authority and sharability through link building in guest blogs and social media. These methods will still play a vital part in the future of SEO but one thing is changing dramatically: how Google reads a query and decides what the best result is.

Hummingbird changes from a focus on keywords to a focus on the overall meaning behind the query (the semantic meaning) and then finds the content that best answers the question or inquiry. Therefore, content isn’t about fitting a certain keyword schema and a certain amount of backlinks to get your rank and authority up anymore. Now search engine optimization is about how well your content functions as an answer to the user’s query. If you are developing content for a business, it should be designated towards a specific market. Therefore, you have to find out the wants and needs of the market you are writing for.

Hummingbird means your content has to be original, functional, specific, and well written. These qualities in writing will lead to sharability and, therefore, backlinks. Good content, therefore, is content that works for the user not for Google (although by writing for the user you are also writing content that works for Google). What makes this revolutionized algorithm so great is that it changes what has been the normal marketing strategy in content development : building authority, good keywords, sharability, and backlinks in order to create “good content”. Instead, good content should be good writing that helps a user or client and serves a purpose other than appeasing the omnipotent Google.

How This Will Change Content Developer’s Writing

Since Google is focusing on the semantic meaning of queries, this means content will have to be better at answering the semantic meanings of queries. For content to get indexed and reach high rankings, content developers have to write in a way that will be a helpful experience. Meaning an article that is well organized, informative or useful, and creative.

Google’s updates continue to force the content developer to revolutionize their way of writing from businesses to clients. Instead of getting lost in the technology of page indexing and keyword research, now it’s about finding out which pages generate traffic and give your market the best user experience. So, content development is about creating experience. This means more and more, content development is turning into pure art.