Google has implemented a major search algorithm upgrade which it calls ‘Hummingbird’. The upgrade, revealed for the first time yesterday, is the biggest in three years and it was quietly implemented to improve Google’s search products a month ago. TechCrunch says that ‘Hummingbird’ focuses on “parsing searches as complex questions”. Also today, the 27th September, is Google’s 15th birthday. To celebrate Google has created a new interactive doodle game based upon a Mexican piñata.
Journalists attending a Google press event yesterday were all put on a bus at Google HQ and transported to the Menlo Park garage where, 15 years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on the embryonic Google search engine. At the presentation Google revealed that a new search engine algorithm called ‘Hummingbird’ had been implemented a month ago. The purpose of this upgrade was to better answer comparison questions.
The Google Inside Search blog provides more details about the use of this new comparison feature. Questions without a simple answer will now provide more illuminating results, writes Amit Singhal, SVP, Google Search. Comparisons are also catered for more thoughtfully in a like for like tabular search result. Examples of common comparisons include dietary items, “Compare butter with olive oil,” dog breeds and celestial bodies with many more promised to be in the works.
Celebrations
Google has created a new interactive doodle game based upon a Mexican piñata to mark its 15th birthday. You will find this as usual on the Google search main page. In the ‘game’ you play a blindfolded little ‘g’ with a stick, you are allowed a certain number of ‘whacks’ at the piñata the timing of which is controlled simply by pressing the space bar on your keyboard. It might just be enough to cease all your office productivity on a Friday.
Google 1998 - notice the exclamation mark in the logo
The fun doesn’t stop there... Google also have introduced a page which mimics its 1998 debut design. Just type “google in 1998” into the search field or click here to go straight there.
