Today, Google marked its 15th birthday. On the day of celebrations, Google has announced a newer version of its search algorithm – code named the Hummingbird. The new update will help tackle issue of long and complex search queries. Although Google makes literally hundreds of changes to its search engine each year but the most prominent architectural updates are announced publicly. Prior to this, Panda was announced in February 2011, which could help reduce the prominence of low-quality content in search results. Later in June 2010, Caffeine was announced that could help web indexing system to get faster search results. Hummingbird is the most prominent update in Google Search Algorithm since June 2010. The new update also includes tweaks in Google Knowledge Graph which is an encyclopedia of 570 million concepts and relationships among them.
Ever since Google registered the domain google.com back in 1997, the search engine has grown into world’s most used search engine. Today, Google is the most visited website on earth with billions of hits each day.
According to Amit Singhal, the VP of Google Search, the update that was rolled out a month back in is currently affecting 90% of search results.
Amit Singhal wrote in two separate blogpost:
“Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You’d sit down and boot up your bulky computer, dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to websites that had those words.”
“The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the Web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket.”
The Google Search Algorithm was launched during early years of Google’s operation. It was created in the Menlo Park house and garage where Google founders Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Susan Wojcicki and others used to work.
Google continues to work on Google Now which is an intelligent personal assistant. Google Now is available within the Google Search mobile application for the Android and iOS operating systems.
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