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Hummingbird – The True Story
Hummingbird – The True Story
First Off... Who Am I?
Co-author: The Art of SEO CEO: Stone Temple Consulting, 30+
person Digital Marketing and SEO firm Columnist:
Interviewer:
Hummingbird
Synonyms
Understands Context – “Where is the closest Italian restaurant”
Maps to Knowledge Graph
Maps User Intent – “Red Sox VS Yankees”
GoodEvil
Comparison Queries
Jupiter VS Saturn
Conversational Queries
“Show Me Pictures of the Eiffel Tower”
Remembers Context – “How Tall Is It?”
Another Example
Sequence
“How Tall Is He”
“Who Is His Wife?”
“Does He Have Children?”
“Who Is He Playing This Sunday?”
“When Did He Start Playing Football?”
Important
=
What Is TheWeather In
Rome?
RomeWeather
No Difference In The Results!
=
Very Early Days!
Where Can I Find a Party?
Is Jennifer Aniston Older Than
Russell Crowe?
A Brief Look At The Patents
First Query Rewriting Patent Filing
From The “Hummingbird
Patent”
H/T Bill Slawski
ZoomingIn
Co-Occurrence
H/T Bill Slawski
Hummingbird in a Nutshell
QueryTranslator
UserQuery Main
Algo
Translated Search Query Results
ModifiedQuery
Hummingbird
Inside the Query TranslatorQuery Translator
UserQuery Modified
Query
Previous Query
References
ComparisonQuery
RelativeReferences
Perform Query
Translation
“It”
“vs”
“near”
Synonyms “auto”, “car”
Long Tail Impact
“Where is the nearest pizza place?”“How far is it from San Jose to Las Vegas?“I want to know the price of gasoline”“How tall is Anna Kournikova?“When was the last episode of Breaking Bad?
ModifiedQuery
“Where is the nearestpizza place?”
ModifiedQuery
“pizzarestaurants”
“hotels”
ModifiedQuery
“rome hotels”
Immediately After a Search for “Rome”
SERP Impact
1
2
3
4
5
Basics of Hummingbird
• Affects 90% of queries• Translates queries– Natural language– Synonyms– Context– Co-citation connections
• Maps true intent
Google’s Process Is Like Teaching a ChildOne Step at a Time
PCs Declining, Tablets Exploding
Smart Phone Sales Too
Role of Voice Search
Environments Where It Will Not Work
The destination
+
Impact on SEO
Some Tactics Significantly Changed
SEOCopywriting
Address User Wants / Needs
User Groups
UserTesting.com
Mechanical Turk Can Work Too!
Map Web Design to User Needs
ExcessiveKeywordCentricity
Example
Where is the Nearest Pizza Place?
Las Vegas Pizza
• Does your site show that it makes pizza?
• Is the location information on the pages?
Example 2
Who is Better, Tom
Brady or Peyton
Manning?
Compare Tom Brady
Peyton Manning
• Does your sport site have a page that discusses this very common question?
Query Anticipation
• What if Google knows that 25% of people who enter the query “Eiffel Tower” next ask for the height of the tower?
• Does your page answer that question?• What are the real questions users have in
mind when they start with a basic query?
Exercise: “Digital Cameras”
Keyword Research Tools
PageRank
PageRank May No Longer Update
• Last updated in Feb 2013• Not bring updated again this year• Google may not update it again• Data was really bad quality anyway• Much better to focus on actual authority– Not a number that Google uses anyway!
• Comes with industry knowledge
Third Party Measurements
Check it Yourself!
Google Wants You To Think Strategically
Be an Expert or Go Home
Show Leadership
Stand for Something
Dig Deep (Be Comprehensive)
Build Trust
Help Others and Communicate Your Expertise
You
