Google has stated that Hummingbird applies to up to 90% of ‪‎search‬ queries, making its effects nearly universal. Are you feeding the Google ‪Hummingbird‬? We have some optimization steps.

1. F E E D I N G
Hummingbird?
ARE YOU
THE

2. In September 2013, Google announced that it
had updated a core algorithm influencing the
way that the results of complex queries appear
on the Google SERP.
This update was referred to as
"hummingbird".

3. Hummingbird was
designed to better
handle the type of
“question/answer”
- style queries
prevalent on mobile
devices.

4. HOW DOES IT WORK?
Google has released no
formal documentation on
Hummingbird, a situation
that has led to a high level
of misinformation about
it to circulate within the
SEO community.

5. Some experts have gone so far as
to 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 a
Hummingbird-induced penalty.
There is no actual evidence that
any of these claims are true.

6. Google and the other engines are
continuously working to improve the
accuracy of search results, and much of
this work involves the incorporation of
information beyond the individual query
session in which the keyword entry is
made.

7. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
While it is impossible for those who are not directly
employed by Google to know the degree to which
each input by Hummingbird contributes (or
detracts) from a web page's objective authority, it
is clear that web publishers need to think more
holistically about the content they generate and
optimize in order to increase the chances that it
will rank favorably on the Google SERP.

8. Additionally, they may need to
take steps to identify themselves
better to Google to gain the search
engine's trust, and organize the
data on their sites in a way that is
easy for Google to understand.

9. STEP 1. OPTIMIZE
CONTENT NATURALLY
Hummingbird’s advent
should cause copywriters
to focus on
not just keywords -- when
crafting content.
THEMES

10. While keywords remain important, the
fact that Hummingbird is better able to
understand the context of a particular
body of text means that writers can
write more naturally, without
obsessing about keyword density.

11. STEP 2. DISCLOSE
YOUR IDENTITY
While Google has denied that social signals are
incorporated into search rankings, it is clear that
the more Google knows about a given publisher,
the more likely it is that such a publisher (if
legitimate) will be correctly accorded the credit
he/she is due.

12. At minimum, publishers seeking to take advantage
of Hummingbird should have Google Accounts in
order to verify their identities. These accounts
provide both utility (Gmail) and a range of tools
(Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools) that provide
major intelligence value to the publisher when it
comes to site optimization and content strategy.

13. Additionally, publishers should take steps to
incorporate Author Rel to correctly assign
authorship to web documents.

14. STEP 3. STRUCTURE
YOUR DATA
Structuring web documents correctly will enhance
Hummingbird's ability to understand and correctly
contextualize web content.
While HTML -- the native language of the Web -- has some
logical structure already built into it (H1, H2, etc.),
publishers should take steps to more granularly tag their
documents by applying micro-data format tagging as
specified by schema.org.

15. Micro-data is a form of meta-information that classifies
content in terms that Hummingbird can easily understand.
And doing so also will help Google produce accurate "rich
snippets" (the ancillary information included below
organic SERP results) in order to give searchers' a better
idea of the actual content of a given Web document as it
appears on Google.

16. Google's Webmaster Tools includes a very helpful Data
Highlighter feature that can help you apply micro-data to
the documents you publish.

17. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen C. Baldwin
Steve Baldwin is an author and
tech industry veteran who’s been
“Working the Web” since 1994.
You can learn more about him at
Editor-in-Chief, Didit
StephenCarlBaldwin.com.

18. MORE QUESTIONS?
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