Google's Hummingbird

According to Amit Singhal, Senior VP at Google, Google's new search algorithm, titled "Hummingbird", has been in place for approximately a month.  Hummingbird affects approximately 90% of all searches.  According to the article, "The new algorithm is meant to keep up with longer, more advanced search queries that come through Google."  As discussed in class, search is primarily based on keywords and the relevance of of those keywords to the search performed by the user.  Google's search algorithm redesign moves beyond simple keywords to work with more user-friendly queries (accommodating question-based queries which come more naturally to users" such as "Tell me about Impressionist artists".  This is similar to Ask.com in the sense that Hummingbird is an attempt to provide results that are more relevant to questions asked rather than a string of keywords that a user may enter.

Another interesting change that Google has made--an attempt to address the growing voice search market--is advanced voice queries.  Users have increasingly relied on voice queries (i.e. Siri) for its convenience and Google looks to take voice queries a step further.  Users receive voice responses and can ask multiple questions regarding their topic of interest and Google search will remember the context so that the user does not have to constantly re-ask. 

Both Hummingbird and voice queries seek to make users' lives easier by adjusting to users' natural behaviors offline.  Thus, instead of users having to structure search queries to accommodate how Google search "thinks", Google search is now adapting to the user.

Original Source: http://mashable.com/2013/09/26/google-search-algorithm-hummingbird/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner