Google’s Hummingbird UpdateThe evolution of search, welcome to the semantic web.

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Going Where No Search Has Gone Before“If you think of Google as if it were a car, then penguin and panda updates were like adding more horsepower to an older but solid car engine. Hummingbird is basically like taking the entire engine out of the car out and replacing it with a brand new one...”

SEO in the past was always about probabilities. In The Past

‣ Search returned “statistically” probable answers to the query. • To succeed in search, we had a

variety of tools: inbound links, meta data, anchor text and other on-page techniques.

• When something didn’t work we simply had to increase the quality, volume and/or intensity.

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In the new semantic web, statistics are fading away. In The Present

‣ Search is changing, actually it’s becoming:• Personalized, populated with

familiar faces, more accurate and more intuitive.

‣ The way we search and what we use is changing:• Mobile, voice, local , personal,

conversational, predictive, functional (i.e. maps, video)

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Introducing “Entities”... a radical new approach to search.

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Google’s New Hummingbird Algorithm

‣ Entities Are The New Driver• Entities are generated

relational mapping that uncovers the association between different data points.

• Entities become trusted points around which other data revolves. Source: Wikipedia

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What Is An Entity?If you think about a knowledge graph in search, the entity isn’t the “thing” - but it’s everything around it that defines whatever it is. When you think of a house, you think of everything that represents a home whether it’s inside or outside the home...

Understanding how entities are produced will be critical for every SEO professional to understand going forward.

‣ Imported from trusted sources (ex. Wikipedia)

‣ Extracted from web pages

‣ Data mining in the social web

‣ Sentiment mining

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How Are Entities Produced?

Entities are a real challenge to search engine optimization. The Challenge

‣ They provide answers at the search box rather than the suggestions.• Optimization appears to

be reduced to answering a search query... but LOOK AGAIN!

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The “ENTITY” that is the answer to the search query “who is Bob Marley” produced:

The Challenge (continued...)

‣ An answer‣ A biography w/

associated links‣ Recent posts w/ links‣ Associated entities,

complete w/ links

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A “single answer” result generated a much wider and more related field of data than was ever possible before.

For SEOs the challenges are as steep as the question is simple:Entities: Challenge & Opportunity

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‣ Changing search interface (screen-less computers and keyless devices)

‣ Less reliance on keywords‣ Depreciation of existing, on-page SEO techniques ‣ Loss of real estate space of SERPs‣ Reduced reliance on statistical association in results

How do we take advantage of “Entities” to make up for it all?

Let’s take a look at at the key data points...Reverse Engineering

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‣ Authority

‣ Trust

‣ Reputation

‣ Influence

If that’s the end result, how can it be reduced further into manageable steps?

What actions can be taken at content-creation that will produce these outcomes, and how can this be ensured?

THINK:VolumeVelocityVarietyTenacity

ConnectionSocial discoverySocial buzz

+ Authorship & “Author Rank”

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Focus On People, Not KeywordsTake advantage of social signals and user groups to help get your message, product or service in front of those who would benefit most from it. After all, the web was created for the “person”, not the keyword.

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Jonathan HinshawFounder, EBWAY Creative

Thank You!

Twitter: @jonathanhinshawwww.ebwaycreative.com