Have you ever searched for something on Google and have been disappointed by the search results? If yes, then you will not be disappointed henceforth. If no, then your chances of getting disappointed have been drastically reduced. And, this is because of the Google BERT Update.
On 25th October 2019, Google rolled out it’s new algorithm update – BERT. Google search works on algorithms and Google keeps on making improvements in it’s algorithms & such changes are known as updates. BERT update is a very significant update as it is going to change the way search used to work till now.
Are you completely new to search?
If you are completely unaware of how search works, have a quick look at my article What is SEO?
I have described how search works in simple words there.
But having even a slight idea about how search works will help you understand about BERT update in a better way.
What is Google BERT Update?
BERT stands for “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers”. It is an open-source neural network-based for natural language processing. In simple words, it is going to understand the language of humans in a more efficient and effective approach and deliver better search results.
Whenever you used to search, the words in your search queries were used by the Google’s algorithm to find search results for you. But, your intent was not captured. Thanks to BERT, now the search engine is going to understand the intent of the search and your experience with Google is going to improve much more.
10% of the search queries are going to be affected by the Google BERT update. As per Google, BERT is so complex that if they have to implement it completely than they will require more hardware too.
Google BERT – For Better Customer Experience
Customer experience is the core of any service/product. When digital is at it’s peak, everyone is using technology to serve customers in a better way. This is amazing attempt by Google to understand the context of the search and deliver more quality results.
If I have to make an equation for how Google is trying to improve it’s search, than it would look something like this:
Quality Content + Context + Speed = Better Customer Experience
Where,
Quality Content is the content which is relevant to user’s search query and helps the user.
Context is understanding the user by the words he is using for making the search. That is understanding the intent of the search query.
Speed is performing the natural language processing for long conversational queries faster without hampering the user’s experience.
We usually have a habit to type conversational queries in the search box. With BERT, our the words in the queries will be analyzed to understand the context of our search. Isn’t this amazing?
How to optimize for Google BERT update?
While Webmasters/SEO guys are worried about how this is going to impact their websites, let me tell you that this will not affect you. BERT will not affect you much if you are following Google’s guidelines and performing white-hat SEO.
There’s nothing to optimize for with BERT, nor anything for anyone to be rethinking. The fundamentals of us seeking to reward great content remain unchanged.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 28, 2019
As you can see in the tweet above, Danny Sullivan from Google says that the fundamentals still remains the same and there is nothing to optimize for with BERT.
Long-tail keywords and Google BERT
Long-tail keywords are mostly used while searching and define more specific context of a search. For example, “digital marketing course” and “I want to join a digital marketing course in Mumbai” – Both are having the keyword “digital marketing course”. But in the 2nd query, the intent of the user can be understood in a much better way. This is the main purpose of BERT – to understand the intent of the query and help searcher get what he is seeking.
If you are emphasizing on long-tail keywords and have quality content which is going to help users than you are surely going to rank after Google BERT update.
Google loves you when you love your readers. The ultimate goal of Google is to help readers get the best they can get. Are you the best?
Examples of search results with BERT update
Example 1: Here, you can observe that the “Before” result is not relevant. But, “After” BERT, the result is more accurate as the context of the search is understood. The word “to” and the words before and after it are analyzed by the neural-network technology and better result is obtained.
Example 2: In this example, you see that “Before” result is not at all answering the question asked while the “After” result is trying to answer the question in a better way. Here, “for someone” was missed previously but BERT can understand it and also analyzes the context of the search.
You can find out more examples and read more about BERT at https://www.blog.google/products/search/search-language-understanding-bert
Let me know your learning about Google BERT update in the comments sections.