As part of the Google algorithm, RankBrain uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to learn about users and how they respond to search results, especially for queries that have never been searched before. It learns the meaning of a query as well as the information people seek by watching how people respond.
Google developed the technology to process nearly 15% of queries it receives each day for the first time. Launched in October 2015, Rankbrain is now the third most important ranking signal for Google. In fact, RankBrain is now used in 80% of Google searches.
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The Importance of RankBrain to SEO
Google has acknowledged that RankBrain is now an essential part of organic search, even though it was originally developed to focus on the completely unique queries seen daily. Greg
Corrado, a Google senior research scientist, claims that eliminating the program would impact the user experience so great that it would be the equivalent of not indexing half of Wikipedia’s pages.
How Does RankBrain Work?
RankBrain may or may not be a major change in your theories and practices depending on the sophistication and modernity of your SEO skills.
RankBrain wizard Rand Fishkin emphasizes three concepts that every SEO needs to understand:
1. Different rankings signals apply to different queries
Prior to RankBrain, evaluating website page optimization could have been accomplished by evaluating all traditional signals (link diversity, content depth, keyword matching, etc.). Following RankBrain, SEOs must determine which content will best satisfy users’ needs. When it comes to something like a hurricane, the freshness will be more important than links.
You’ll have to rely on content depth, and possibly related topics covered by your domain, in order to establish authority in a topic like Indigenous American music. SEOs must match signals to query intent with the machine learning algorithms that power RankBrain.
2. Signals apply to your website’s reputation
SEO attempts to make your brand recognized as a resource that is trusted by users and search engines. You can rank well for the keywords most important to you as a result of establishing such a reputation. What other signals can your brand use to build its reputation? Does it need freshness, depth, diversity of earned links, high user engagement, etc.? Depending on the topic (for example, real-time sporting scores versus an online course in the Spanish language).
Are the queries you wish to rank for short, detailed answers or quick, quick answers? RankBrain creates an environment in which your brand can become known for delivering a certain type of content that meets a particular need over time based on the signals it wants to serve.
3. One-keyword-one-page no longer works
As you probably already know, the practice of creating separate pages for “spatulas,” “kitchen spatulas,” “pancake turners,” and “metal spatulas” is a tired old horse that needs to be put to pasture.
With modern SEO, all of these phrases (and their associated URLs) would be combined into a single piece of thorough, natural language content that reflects the way humans search and speak.
The advent of RankBrain is not new information to most SEOs, but it confirms the wisdom of focusing on total keywords with comprehensive content rather than breaking out pages for variants like “widget” and “widgets.”
How To Optimize for RankBrain Algorithm?
Google has not specifically explained how RankBrain influences search, but it is likely that it helps the algorithm better understand content to deliver more relevant results. To ensure your content keeps ranking well, follow these steps:
- Create high-value content by exploring topics in-depth and answering customer questions
- To make sure that your content is easy to understand by the algorithm, use schema markup. Currently, this does not seem to affect ranking, but it may in the future if Google introduces more artificial intelligence into its algorithm.
- You can monitor your traffic and conversion rates to see how successful your effort is by noticing dips and rises.
The introduction of RankBrain in the Google algorithm was an exciting development. As the search engine makes its algorithm smarter in an effort to maximize user experience, it is very likely that this trend will continue in the future.
Your content will be ready for any algorithm changes by preparing user-friendly content and machine-friendly markups now.