Understanding Google's New Algorithm—What Is Google BERT?
If you're like most people, Google is your closest and best friend when you want an answer to a question. But you've probably also had times when you couldn't find answers to your queries on this otherwise seemingly all-knowing search engine.
And sure—after all, Google is just a machine that doesn't always understand what people mean. But Google is now trying to change that with the BERT update.
But what exactly is BERT? How does the update affect the user experience for the average user? And what impact does it have onSEOand content marketing? You can learn more about this in this post, where I provide a brief introduction to what may be Google’s most important update in five years.
1. What is Google BERT?
In short, BERT is a complex algorithm designed to help Google better understand us humans and all the small errors and nuances that are part of our language—as well as the way we search on search engines. This means Google will potentially be better at delivering more relevant and valuable results to users.
BERT stands forBidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformersand is an artificial intelligence that enables Google to understand linguistic variations in users’ queries based on the given context.
The algorithm uses what is known as a transformer, which, in short, is a mechanism that understands the contextual relationships between the words in a text.
In Danish—and other Indo-European languages such as English, German, Italian, French, etc.—we use prepositions to understand the relationships between places, people, times, and things. And prepositions play a crucial role in how we understand and use language. For example, it matters whether you’re flyingtothe U.S. orfromthe U.S.—just as it’s likely crucial to your pride and self-confidence whether someone is laughingwithyou oratyou.
However, Google doesn't always do a good job of understanding this. Instead, the search engine often focuses on the keywords in users' queries. In practice, this means that the search results don't always match what the user is looking for.
But with BERT, Google will no longer just read individual words in a query—instead, it will focus on theentirelinguistic context and the internal linguistic relationships between the words in users’ queries.
2. BERT is intended to make Google more user-friendly
So what will BERT mean for the average Google user?
The short answer is: even more relevant and reliable results—and thus a better user experience.
After all, the better Google understands how people actually speak and search, the better and more relevant search results the search engine will be able to show users. With this update, Google’s SERP will therefore become even better at showing users pages that answer their questions—and not just pages containing keywords or selected words from the query.
Let me illustrate this with an example:
You want to quit smoking. But you want to do it without using nicotine products like patches and gum. So you Google “quitting smoking without nicotine products.”
Currently, Google typically matches individual words and phrases such as “quitting smoking” and “nicotine products” with words in the search results—without taking into account the highly relevant preposition “without.” This means that the search engine will show you search results featuring nicotine products—which is completely contrary to the purpose of your query.
But with the BERT update, Google will analyze the linguistic context and thus understand the preposition’s relationship to the other words in your query. Or, to put it another way: You’ll see results that answer how to quit smoking without using nicotine products.
3. How does BERT affect SEO?
It all depends on whether you've kept your SEO up to date—or if you're still thinking about SEO the way people did back in 2010.
As I mentioned in the post “Why Your Business Should Write Blog Posts, ” content marketing plays a crucial role in SEO in 2019 (and 2020, which is just around the corner). Relevant and valuable content that answers users’ questions has become best practice in search engine optimization.
This means that you don't have to worry about poor rankings in search results with the arrival of BERT, as long as your web content is user-friendly and well-written.
On the other hand, is your go-to SEO hack to cram your landing pages full of the primary keyword? Or do you write countless landing pages with different variations of a keyword, even though they all answer the same question?
So you should probably consider revising yourSEO strategy if you don’t want to fall behind in search results in 2020, when Google expects to roll out BERT in Denmark.
BERT will primarily affect informational search terms—that is, the search terms users enter into Google when looking for information on a specific topic. These could include search terms such as “What is Google BERT?”
This means it will become less profitable to write lengthy landing pages and blog posts where your exact-match keyword appears an unnaturally high number of times in the text. Instead, you should focus on how you can provide your users with answers to their questions.
4. BERT's Impact on My Work
I hope this post has given you a little insight into Google BERT—even though, of course, I’ve only just scratched the surface of the nearly inexhaustible wealth of knowledge that such a complex algorithm generates.
So far, I’ve tried as much as possible to describe BERT objectively. But what do I, asan SEO copywriter, think about BERT—how will the update affect my work?
The short answer is:yes!
In a previous position at another Danish web agency, I often had to write up to ten variations of the same landing page for a single client in order to target as many exact-match searches as possible. It could be frustrating because I sometimes felt like I was writing for Google—and not for people. Fortunately, those days are behind me.
Today, it’s becoming common knowledge that SEO depends to a greater extent on the relevance of content to users. And with BERT, it willonlyget easier to create good content marketing, because Google will be better able to figure out what makes sense to the user.
This means that keyword density and the use of exact-match keywords will become even less important—and that it will therefore be much more enjoyable and easier to write web content that is both SEO-friendly and valuable to users.
5. Is your SEO optimized for BERT?
Are you wondering whether BERT will negatively affect your landing pages' rankings on Google? Or do you just have questions about BERT and SEO in general?
So email me directly atak@webamp.dk, or contact Webamp at70 60 50 28orinfo@webamp.dk, and have a no-obligation conversation with one of our SEO specialists.
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