At the end of last month (October 24th) Google announced they had rolled out another core algorithm update, which they named BERT.
Google themselves said that this BERT update will affect 10% of search queries – which makes it their largest update of the last five years!
So, let’s get into it – what does BERT actually mean?
BERT stands for ‘Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.’ That’s all you need to know right? Right? Ok then, it is a deep learning algorithm which is based on NLP (natural learning processing) which will help machines to learn what words in a sentence mean and understand the nuances of context.
Don’t worry, we will go into more detail to make it clearer for you.
What is the aim of the BERT update?
As you are aware, Google has been making more and more tweaks to its algorithms recently to help it to better understand searcher intent.
The aim of BERT, therefore, is to help Google to better understand the entire phrase the searcher is looking for, rather than interpreting it on a word for word basis. After all, simple words or slight modifications of words can have a dramatic effect on the meaning of the search query.
Google themselves said:
“These improvements are oriented around improving language understanding, particularly for more natural language/conversational queries, as BERT is able to help Search better understand the nuance and context of words in Searches and better match these queries with helpful results.
Particularly for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like ‘for’ and ‘to’ matter a lot to meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in your query. You can search in a way that feels natural to you.”
What does the BERT update mean for SEO?
The important thing to remember is that the BERT update is not an algorithm that is aimed at penalising any websites, but rather to help Google better understand the search query.
So, the best way to ensure this algorithm update doesn’t affect your rankings is to ensure you have plenty of high-quality content on-site which answers your target audience questions.
In fact, websites which have well-written, longer length content will do the best out of this update.
Conclusion
The BERT update looks like it will be one of the biggest updates of the last five years, and its focus is on understanding searcher intent better. Only time will tell whether your site will be affected or not.
If you would like some help with your SEO, please get in touch with us at either our Alderley Edge or Manchester office.
Google BERT update: What do you need to know?
Digital SEO / Nov 6, 2019
At the end of last month (October 24th) Google announced they had rolled out another core algorithm update, which they named BERT.
Google themselves said that this BERT update will affect 10% of search queries – which makes it their largest update of the last five years!
So, let’s get into it – what does BERT actually mean?
BERT stands for ‘Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.’ That’s all you need to know right? Right? Ok then, it is a deep learning algorithm which is based on NLP (natural learning processing) which will help machines to learn what words in a sentence mean and understand the nuances of context.
Don’t worry, we will go into more detail to make it clearer for you.
What is the aim of the BERT update?
As you are aware, Google has been making more and more tweaks to its algorithms recently to help it to better understand searcher intent.
The aim of BERT, therefore, is to help Google to better understand the entire phrase the searcher is looking for, rather than interpreting it on a word for word basis. After all, simple words or slight modifications of words can have a dramatic effect on the meaning of the search query.
Google themselves said:
“These improvements are oriented around improving language understanding, particularly for more natural language/conversational queries, as BERT is able to help Search better understand the nuance and context of words in Searches and better match these queries with helpful results.
Particularly for longer, more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like ‘for’ and ‘to’ matter a lot to meaning, Search will be able to understand the context of the words in your query. You can search in a way that feels natural to you.”
What does the BERT update mean for SEO?
The important thing to remember is that the BERT update is not an algorithm that is aimed at penalising any websites, but rather to help Google better understand the search query.
So, the best way to ensure this algorithm update doesn’t affect your rankings is to ensure you have plenty of high-quality content on-site which answers your target audience questions.
In fact, websites which have well-written, longer length content will do the best out of this update.
Conclusion
The BERT update looks like it will be one of the biggest updates of the last five years, and its focus is on understanding searcher intent better. Only time will tell whether your site will be affected or not.
If you would like some help with your SEO, please get in touch with us at either our Alderley Edge or Manchester office.
