Science fiction novels and films are filled with artificial intelligence robots trying to take over the world. Recently, Google has announced in 2015, it has used a new machine-learning, artificial intelligence technology to improve its search results. Does it have the capacity to take over the world? It may be artificial intelligence, but it’s far from taking on a life of its own.
RankBrain, an artificial intelligence program, mimics the human brain’s cognitive capacity by finding patterns and meanings among billions of billions of data. While humans are fantastic at analyzing information, we aren’t exactly known for being able to handle massive amounts of information.
RankBrain can do both – process billions of data while also finding patterns and figuring out the meanings to online searches from everywhere in the world.
Want to know more about this technology? Then read on to find out.
What is RankBrain?
There have been conflicting information when RankBrain was used. Some sources say Google officially started using the program on October 26, 2015 while others believe it commenced gradually during the early months of 2015. Whichever is true, RankBrain is already in application and is being used in all countries around the world.
The main purpose of the program is to make the web an easier place to search for information. It has a better capacity to handle never-before-seen queries, allowing users to find whatever it is they’re looking for even when they type in ambiguous keywords. It also takes into account the user’s past personal searches.
Here is a basic example: You type in “Amelia Earhart.” What RankBrain will do is give you the top ranked websites related to Amelia Earheart, but it doesn’t end there. The program will also show you several other sites that do not necessarily talk about “Amelia Earheart,” but all the other links connected to information surrounding the keyword, such as planes, and known personalities associated with her. While this may sound like it’s nothing new – RankBrain takes it up a notch by showing you all the top ranked sites related to the keyword, and not just about “Amelia Earheart” per se.
When you type in, “When was she born?” right after you searched for “Amelia Earheart,” RankBrain will understand who you are referring to without typing in the person’s name. It will use your recent history to analyze your general search query.
Unlike other programs where the results are automated and pre-programmed, RankBrain’s search results use your current activity to create updated and ever-changing search engine results. So if you type in “Amelia Earhart” today and type it again two weeks after, expect to see different sites on your search results.
It is based on the assumption that the purpose of your searches stem from your desire to discover new information each time you explore a certain keyword or topic.
How Important Is RankBrain?
Google uses hundreds of programs and signals to rank webpages and to find related content. Google expressed that RankBrain is the 3rd most important signal and that it handles about 15% of Google’s average of 3 billion searches per day.
Without RankBrain, Google’s search engine provides a 70% success rate, but this has gone up to 80% with the arrival of the new program.
What about Hummingbird? Is RankBrain an Entirely New Algorithm?
Hummingbird was launched in 2013 and consists of the overall algorithm that sorts out the billions of pages and finds the ones that are relevant to a particular query. RankBrain is not an entirely different program but belongs to the overall algorithm that makes up Hummingbird.
As said, RankBrain is only one of the hundreds of signals that determine which sites rank the highest, which sites appear on the pages of Google’s search results, and which sites should be included in a particular query.
However, unlike the other hundreds of signal, RankBrain is one of the top 3 most important, along with backlinks and content.
Will it Affect SEO?
Defining keywords is the first step to creating a successful SEO campaign. Without the proper keywords, your site is doomed to fail since your audience won’t be able to find you among the billions and billions of pages on the web.
Since RankBrain is one of the most important signals for search results, it will affect SEO significantly.
As mentioned, RankBrain uses artificial intelligence and works on an ever-evolving method of discovering significant content. This means that your SEO campaign must continually be changing or improving so Google will still find your content relevant.
What to Do with Your SEO Campaign?
While RankBrain’s effects and performance on Google are relatively new, there are already steps that you can do to take advantage of this new program.
Here are some tips to make sure your SEO campaign stays relevant in Google:
1. Improve Your Current Content
Make some changes in your current content but still focusing on your niche. You may want to branch out to other topics, but this will not be a good idea. Instead, create more content that focuses on your brand or topic, but with more diversity yet still within the same realm of your particular niche.
2. Answer More Questions
When visitors visit your site, try to answer as many inquiries or comments as you can. This will help you to become an authority on your niche, and will help to keep your site ever-changing with new content or data every day. The key to RankBrain is to provide constant and current new information that are focused on your particular niche.
3. Create Evergreen Content
Create content that will stay relevant and fresh for years. Try as much as you can to avoid using specific dates or words that refer to a time your reader ten years from now may not comprehend right away.
By using evergreen content, RankBrain will be able to find your site even when it’s several years from the time you published it. This is as long as you continuously create new content as well. Make the user-experience even better by implementing on-page ranking factors within your content.
Summary
Rankbrain is an artificial intelligence program by Google that makes searches easier for anyone. It also brings about pages and content that would’ve otherwise been ignored, and it generally makes web searching faster and easier especially for anyone who may not necessarily know what they’re looking for.
Google’s search results become more precise, and it makes more sense with RankBrain.