The short answer to the question is that 90% of worldwide search queries will be impacted by Hummingbird. That’s according to Google itself. This means that, of course, the vast majority of websites will be impacted to some degree.
But the biggest question is more complicated: How will YOUR website be impacted?
We’ll seek to answer the question by asking three other questions…
1) Does your content satisfy intent?
Google’s entire goal is to provide the searcher with the results they are truly looking for. Google doesn’t want to provide searchers with keyword stuffed content, content with great metadata, or content that merely satisfies an algorithmic requirement. Google wants to provide the searcher with what the searcher wants. They want to satisfy intent.
An article in Search Engine Journal puts it best:
“Context has entered the search strategy lexicon, which accounts for more personalized search tactics based on location, platform, device and/or hyper local factors. The new update better acknowledges context, timeliness, conversational search location cues, Knowledge Graph data and an understanding of complex queries.”
In other words, give the people what they want!
If your site does this, you’ll be impacted positively by Hummingbird.
2) Is your content legitimately good and in-depth?
It seems like Google is steering content creation toward longer content that addresses questions in a more in-depth way. This isn’t necessarily a shift, but it does mean that longer content might be better than shorter content.
The trick, though, is this: it can’t be so long and dry that no one can actually read it. Don’t write for the search engines.
To again quote from Search Engine Journal:
“Content needs to be deep and rich to be deemd the most relevant piece of content for any given query. Seites that are currently developing rich content that seek to answer more comprehensive questions, rather than keywords or phrases, will increase their chances of ranking well with the new update.”
So, the length of the content isn’t the critical element of creating ‘rich’ content. Instead, it is writing content that actually provides value rather use a bunch of keywords.
If you’re producing ‘rich’ content, it is likely that Hummingbird helped you.
3) Are you using Authorship?
Google is now, clearly, using Authorship as a factor in optimization.
If you’re using Authorship, it is likely that Hummingbird helped you.
