Google’s RankBrain and SEO

Google has a new update for us. Called “RankBrain”, in its most basic sense it’s an attempt by Google to run AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a way of working out how useful a site is to any given query.

One example Google has given for how it affects things, is this search query:

What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain

Obviously that’s not the most well structured question, but a lot of searches aren’t that carefully thought out.

The point of the example is the word “consumer”. In different contexts it can mean different things, and RankBrain is intended to help match searches with the most relevant results; understanding the context.

It doesn’t have a huge effect on how I would structure a site and its contents for SEO though—fortunately because my advice for SEO has always fit in very nicely with Google’s overall ethos, changes to their algorithm usually strengthen my clients’ SEO.

But it is worth being aware that Google is definitively not just “pattern matching”; counting keywords in your content. They’re trying to read it like a human being would—so keep writing for a human audience when you’re adding content.