The search engine giant Google has unveiled a major update to its search engine algorithm on the eve of its 15th birthday.
Founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin went back to the old garage where they founded the company exactly 15 years ago. From their first office, they announced major updates to their search algorithm calling it “Hummingbird”.
“When it comes to technology behind search, the fact is the computers still don’t understand language like you and I do, we at Google have made tremendous advances in understanding language: Amit Singhal, SVP of Search at Google”
This new search algorithm update however is in effect since last one month but was announced today. Google kept it short while introducing this new algorithm and did not put much words on specifics of this algorithm.
Hummingbird algorithm is aimed at answering long, complex search queries
Google told that this new algorithm is capable of answering long and complex natural language queries that users often ask each other off the internet. (e.g. “Tell me about Impressionist artists.”) said Singhal. He also added that Hummingbird is the most significant algorithm change at Google since the launch of “Caffeine” that company introduced in 2010.
New advanced voice search
Google also showed off their advanced voice search functionality that enables user to ask a search query to Google and the search engine will speak back to the user with the search result. Voice will be fundamental to building future interactions with the devices [we use], Singhal said.
Users can ask Google to compare two items, generate a list of songs from a particular artist or pull statistics about the Eiffel tower and receive a voice response said Mr. Signhal. Explaining the advanced capabilities of their new search algorithm, Mr. Signhal said that their knowledge graph is so much advanced that users will be able to receive voice response for a series of questions.
In case of Eiffel tower, a user would need to say “Eiffel tower” only once and the search will remember the context.
“You should not be spending your time searching, you should be spending your time living ”: Singhal
Earlier this year, Google rolled out Penguin 2.0 targeted at hitting the webspam while in mid 2012, the search giant published big update to its Panda algorithm.
Your thoughts
With this latest and advanced search update, Google is all set to embrace the future of search technology. Share your ideas and thoughts on this update. Tell us what do you think of this new advanced search update in the comment box below.
