Google Hummingbird has got us all in a flutter and is set to change the way businesses and marketing agencies work but its now smarter and more holistic, says Farky Rafiq, Director of SEO marketing agency, Liquid Silver Marketing.

In the last month we have seen a fundamental change to the core search algorithm, which is known as Google Hummingbird.

As founder of an SEO marketing agency, I can say with some confidence it's the largest change of its kind since Google launched over 15 years ago. And it's long overdue change. Google are now beginning to recognise ‘entities’ and the semantic meaning behind keywords, content, marketing agencies and brands.

There are over 200 ranking factors which go into how Google ranks your website within the results pages. It’s just not as simple as a few short-term tactics which ‘make you number 1’. Google has become pretty sophisticated as you might well expect!

Let's have a demonstration...

If you use Google Chrome go and try Google Voice Search (or on a mobile device, tap the Mic icon) and ask Google, 'what is the weather?'. 'And after tomorrow?'

Google, you'll hopefully find, is now able to recognise your location and give you a run down of the weather.

It is able to answer your follow up question because it's now able to semantically connect the two queries and provide the appropriate information.

What is means is, Google is now beginning to recognise intent beyond keywords.

In essence, the algorithm is using the whole of the web to understand the meaning of the query.

Admittedly, it's very early days but we’re starting to see a fundamental shift within SEO. It’s becoming about the user-experience and brands and marketing agencies will need not only to optimise their websites, but also think about how their brands really work online. Welcome to the semantic web.