What is Google BERT and Why Should I Care?

With an announcement made on October 25th, Google unveiled its latest update and the most significant update the search engine giant has made over the past five years. Google BERT will influence a whopping 10 percent of all search queries. What does this mean for digital marketers like you?

It means that instead of penalizing online content, Google is placing an emphasis on acquiring a better understanding of the intent of online searches.

Overview of Google BERT

The acronym BERT means Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. What sounds like technology from a Transformers movie, Google has defined BERT to be a “neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP) pre-training.” The definition of BERT that should appeal more to ordinary web surfers is the Google update represents a new system for helping Google pinpoint what exactly people search for when using the company’s popular search engine. BERT represents natural language processing, which Google uses to match search queries with content uploaded to web pages.

In essence, Google wants to show you better results based off the words you use when searching.

As Search Engine Journal has noted several times, Google spiders detect synonyms used in searches that run through the company’s search engine. Then, Google matches the synonyms to the correct word on a web page, as well as detects misspellings and adapt to the misspelling by finding the proper content. Google has stated BERT will enhance the search query to web page connection on a query by query basis, with the strongest impact coming for organic searches and feature snippets.

Google BERT Comes from RankBrain

As the first artificial intelligence tool used by Google for search queries, RankBrain should continue to play an integral role in determining the connection between search queries and web pages. What BERT does is build on the strong technological foundation established by RankBrain, which means the first artificial intelligence tool Google used for search queries is not going out of style any time soon.

RankBrain is a machine-designed algorithm that Google has used for nearly five years to filter search engine results. The use of an AI tool such as RankBrain significantly changed the way Google approached determining search engine results. Now, the unveiling of BERT is expected to take search engine accuracy to a higher level. BERT is capable of piggybacking on RankBrain by accurately connecting a long term search phrase like “How to install a kitchen countertop” with search results that list different websites devoted to home improvement projects.

Google has confirmed that because BERT and RankBrain are two distinct technologies, the search engine giant is capable of using either technology when it involves processing a search engine request. The decision on which search engine result tool to use will depend on the complexity of the search.

How Will Google BERT Impact SEO?

One of the concerns digital marketers have about Google BERT is how the tool will impact SEO strategies.

You have to understand that Google BERT analyzes search queries, not the content digital marketers upload as part of content marketing program.

Although digital marketers cannot create content that directly impacts BERT, digital marketers need to pay more attention than ever to uploading helpful, relevant content. With BERT, Google will eventually acquire a more accurate capability for discovering the true meaning behind a vast number of the search queries that fall under the BERT platform.

Remember that BERT is a search query update, not an algorithm such as Panda and Penguin that penalize website operators for uploading inferior content.

What if My Traffic Starts to Decline?

If you notice a decline in your website traffic within the next few days or weeks, do not panic and make any overly dramatic changes to your website content until the final verdict comes in on BERT. Google has earned the reputation of rolling out new search engine updates, and then making changes to the updates weeks or even months after the release of the updates. However, after a few weeks of a traffic decline, you should be proactive by initiating one or more steps to correct the problem.

1. Identify the keywords or long tail phrases that have caused your traffic to decline
2. Learn which keywords and long tail phrases are now ranking high in Google’s search engine
3. Slightly modify or perform a major change for the content uploaded to your website

Putting It All Together

Now, the most important question of all: How will Google’s BERT impact your website? The quick answer is you should consider the latest update from Google to be a huge deal. After all, it has been five years since Google launched a similar big deal. Google has referred to BERT as “the biggest leap forward in the past five years, and one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of Search.”

Although the primary purpose of BERT is to make search queries more accurate, the bottom line is BERT will affect the web page rankings. You should stay abreast of your web page rankings over the next several weeks, and then make the adjustments needed to make BERT work for your website.