machine learning

The past six months have seen a spike in interest in artificial intelligence (AI). Most of this has been focused on the increasingly widespread application of the technology behind what makes AI work: machine-learning. While the impact of machine learning is being felt in industries all over the world, from manufacturing to advertising, where it affects all of us equally is in the realm of Google search. The web has become such a part of everyday existence that we barely question it. Google is supplying us not only with the answers to all kinds of queries, but also providing us a globally accessible portal for business and commerce. Google’s success can be summed up in one word: relevance. These algorithm updates are designed to help Google realize their mission to be the best search engine in the world: by being the most relevant. Of course, in order to achieve this, Google has to collect and collate data on virtually every topic imaginable, while scaling an ever-expanding Everest of information, and managing billions of requests for directions to extremely specific locations. A near impossible task for even the most skilled engineers. So, Google introduced RankBrain! But what exactly is the Google RankBrain algorithm update, how does it affect SEO, and what are the key things online content creators should know? Find out in today’s infographic on the topic. Did you learn anything, or have an extra point on the subject to make? Let us know in the comments. Don’t forget to share this infographic! [clickToTweet tweet=”#Infographic: Google & the rise of machine-learning, AI and #RankBrain” quote=”#Infographic: Google & the rise of machine-learning, AI and #RankBrain”] What is Google Rank Brain? Very simply, Google RankBrain a machine-leaning AI system that forms part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update. Hummingbird is all about semantic search, or in other words, contextual relevance. Google handles over 2 billion searches every day, of which 15% (or 450 million) the search engine has never seen before. RankBrain sorts these unique queries into contextual “entities,” chunks of language that have meaning, rather than simply returning results based on keywords. RankBrain translates unique queries, ambiguous sentences, and more obscure “long-tail” keyword phrases into mathematical vectors, which it then uses to search for patterns in the gigantic pool of data that is the web, in order to sort and return the most relevant pages and results for the searcher. It essentially searches for common queries and relates the more complex ones to them, based on context, and then refining its abilities to make similar connections in the future. It is this aspect of RankBrain that makes is so powerful. Each search is an opportunity for it to learn. After processing each query, the machine-learning engine makes slight adjustments to itself, essentially updating its part of the algorithm automatically as it makes connections and relates complex searches to data about similar or related searches it has collected in the past. It then revises search results based on this new information. RankBrain, then, is the part of Hummingbird that makes the algorithm so powerful and effective at fulfilling Google’s mission. Why Does It Matter? After the devastation the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates caused online marketers, SEOs (and their clients) in 2012-2013, the entire landscape of online marketing and business has been on edge about any major announcement coming from Google about their new algorithm updates. Part of why RankBrain caused such stir when it was announced in an article published by Bloomberg in 2015 is that it was revealed that out of the 200+ ranking signals Google currently uses to rank pages, RankBrain was named as the third-most important. (The first and second most important are links and content, in case you were wondering.) However, what is most significant about RankBrain is that it is not a ranking factor that can be “gamed” by SEOs. In fact, it encourages Google’s prime directive of extreme relevance by forcing best practices in content production and link-building. This is not to say that traditional SEO doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, RankBrain interacts dynamically with Google’s other ranking factors to return relevant answers – factors like social shares, bounce rate, time on site, etc. Part of what it does is read data from how other users interacted with a particular site related to a specific query, and uses that data to rank search results. So the reason RankBrain matters is because it is geared towards improving the overall user experience of Google search, by affecting search results. But hopefully for the better. How Google Rank Brain Affects SEO RankBrain is primarily designed to handle the 15% of Google searches that are uncommon, so the impact on SEO is minimal. What is crucial to understand, however, is that RankBrain represents a significant step forward in Google’s use of machine-learning and AI to sift, sort and filter search results. What this means in practice is that SEOs and marketers looking to rank highly in search results need to pay attention to where Google is going. In 2015, Rand Fishkin declared that Google is a “two algorithm world” and that the major impact of the future of Google on SEO was the fact that optimization had to account for ranking inputs for machines, as well as user outputs for humans. So as well as ranking factors like keyword targeting, quality and uniqueness of content, being spider friendly, having excellent UX, and multi-device optimization, user output factors like task completion success, relative CTR, and content gap fulfilment are now a much more significant piece of the SEO puzzle. This seems to be the very essence of RankBrain, which is the first major step toward the refinement of Google’s evolution into the realm of machine-learning. For now, however, what is important to know is, firstly, sticking to SEO best practices means that RankBrain won’t affect you too much. Secondly, instead of being concerned with the effects of an algorithm update on your SEO, you should focus on building your page and creating content for search … Read more