If you thought Google couldn’t get any better, think again. Google has found a way to get you answers faster than before; and they’re calling it the “Hummingbird”. But, don’t panic, that’s not Google’s new nickname. The Hummingbird is to Google what Jelly Bean is to Android – an update that makes things more fun, if not fast. The difference being we won’t be able to visually distinguish the updated version from the previous one. So if you’re on the Google homepage right now trying to do a before and after comparison, you will be slightly disappointed.
“Why did Google need an update in the first place? I thought it was great already!” Yes, we can hear you thinking that. We’ll explain why momentarily. Any search engine works using keywords. These are words that are most relevant to bring up unique search results. This is how we are able to get results without having to enter lengthy queries or fretting about punctuation. This is how we get suggestions even before we’re done typing and get directed to the right results even with misspellings. Bless Google for not being a grammar Nazi. But, with recent leaps and bounds in technology, no one wants to take a crash course in keywords before hitting the icon with a magnifying glass on it. The guys and gals at Google address this with Hummingbird.
Hummingbird teaches Google to look beyond the keywords and grasp the context of the query. This makes it way simpler for the search engine to understand the concept of the subject of the search, making it simpler-er for the user. For those who use Google to boost up their businesses, ads on the engine are likely to hike while the update itself is said to affect up to 90% search requests that come its way. Mr. Amit Singhal, Senior V.P at Google said “Hummingbird is the major overhaul to the search engine since it revised the way it indexes websites three years ago as part of a redesign called Caffeine” when elaborating on the update.
Fun Fact: The Hummingbird is known to be the smallest and only bird that can fly backwards as well. Now why would someone as big as Google name their update after such a small creature? Irony, perhaps.
