SEO

Google Now Using RankBrain for All Queries

by Auroriele Hans July 7th, 2016

“Machine learning is a core, transformative way by which we’re rethinking how we’re doing everything.” –Google CEO Sundar Pichai ¹

Google’s machine learning artificial intelligence system, RankBrain, has gone from processing fifteen percent of searches last year to one hundred percent of searches currently. Active since April 2015, RankBrain is now considered the third most important ranking signal after links and content. ² Don’t worry digital marketers: you don’t have to become machine-learning ninjas now that Google is using the technology to process every single search query—though its engineers may well be expected to.

Jeff Dean, Senior Fellow in the research group in charge of the company’s machine intelligence deep learning team, Google Brain, noted that while ‘Rankbrain is involved in every query,’ it doesn’t affect all rankings—but ‘a lot’ of them.

What Is Machine Learning?

We’ve increasingly heard the phrase in the world of SEO, but what is machine learning? A form of artificial intelligence, machine learning occurs when engineers use algorithms and data to “‘teach software to accomplish” tasks on its own rather than relying on them to continuously program it. Compared to older methods of programming dependent on thousands of lines of static code, machine learning is a much more dynamic model requiring frequent modification.

Google has been experimenting with machine learning for years, incorporating the technology into products like Gmail’s Smart Reply before discovering in 2014 it could help its search engine return more relevant results based on user engagement. RankBrain went live the following year.

How Could RankBrain Influence SERPs?

RankBrain could help Google’s search engine uncover user intent for unique queries. As of 2013, fifteen percent of the three billion searches the company processed every day were completely novel: no one had searched for them before—at least not on this particular search engine.

Google’s search refinement tools prior to RankBrain included stemming and synonym lists and databases describing related phenomena for search engines, all of which, at least initially, required human labor. RankBrain is designed to identify patterns in complex and seemingly unrelated queries, infer similarities, and continuously build on this knowledge to help it interpret future rare or unprecedented searches. ³

Once the intent of a search is uncovered, RankBrain may associate it with a more popular query Google already has user data for and return results for that query instead; for example, when you search for “best tacos in Long Beach,” RankBrain might show results for “best Mexican food in Long Beach.”

RankBrain could help Google provide relevant, high quality results for the large chunk of queries its search engine has never seen before.

How Does RankBrain Impact You?

Since the engineers at Google are still experimenting with RankBrain, SEOs and content marketers are unlikely to see definitive guidelines anytime soon.

While Google’s Senior Vice President of Search, John Giannandrea, believes machine learning will transform everything from vehicles to medicine to, well, humanity, RankBrain is ultimately designed, for now, to reward excellent content. The recommendation for digital marketers echoes that of years past: focus on creating outstanding content.

Additional Sources:

1 – https://backchannel.com/how-google-is-remaking-itself-as-a-machine-learning-first-company-ada63defcb70#.bby98xiwg
2 – http://searchengineland.com/google-loves-rankbrain-uses-for-every-search-252526
3 – http://searchengineland.com/faq-all-about-the-new-google-rankbrain-algorithm-234440

What Happened to Google Authorship?

by SEO Savvy October 29th, 2014

As you may know, Google announced at the end of August that Google Authorship would be no longer. For many content creators and online marketers, this may not come as a surprise: Of the 50 most influential social media marketers, only 30% actually used Google Authorship, according to Forbes. So it’s safe to assume that very few were affected now that Google has pulled the plug on their Authorship experiment. However, it may be worth taking a look at what happened, and where things went wrong.

What was Google Authorship?

Authorship was, in fact, somewhat of an experiment by Google—like most things in the Internet era. Google began its Authorship project officially in 2011, though its roots stretch back to 2007 with the Agent Rank program. Essentially, Google wanted to be able to link different pieces of content under the digital signature of one author. That way, new pieces of content could be ranked based on an author’s legitimacy, and an author’s ranking would be factored into search engine results.

The idea was a good one, but there wasn’t really a way to link content to authors until 2011, when Google unveiled its Google+ markup formula. Perhaps the end of Google Authorship isn’t due to lack of intention but poor application. One reason that so few content marketers actually used Google Authorship may be that it was complicated and cumbersome to link content back to a Google+ author page. Search Engine Land wrote an entire post outlining the three different methods of becoming a verified author on Google+ and the process was often arduous. If so many web creators grew tired while trying to utilize Google Authorship, then threw in the towel at the amount of effort it required, it was probably a sign that something wasn’t working.

The Beginning of the End

Google Authorship, in the end, failed for two reasons, as explained by the company’s John Mueller: 1) low user rates by webmasters and authors, and 2) low value for searchers. Google authors were allotted a profile photo next to their article in search results, which many of you may have noticed in the last couple of years. This was meant to increase visibility and click-through rates based on author ranking, but the author photo actually posed some problems.

You see, Google now receives about half of all its traffic from mobile devices. Google Authorship, depended upon the use of mobile-unfriendly author headshots, wasn’t feasible when so much of Google’s traffic comes from smart phones. Author photos just didn’t translate well to handheld devices. In fact, when Google first announced that it was going to start removing images from Authorship results back in June, the desire to unify the experience across mobile and desktop devices was one of the stated reasons behind the move. Furthermore, Google recently stated that author photos didn’t increase click-through rates as hoped.

The Future of Authorship

The most important point to bear in mind about Google Authorship’s demise is that the problem was in the execution, not the idea itself. The notion that certain people are more qualified to produce content on certain topics than others is self-evident. Google took an ambitious shot at making this idea a part of their search model, and it just didn’t work out. This shouldn’t suggest that Google or anyone else has given up on authorship as an idea. Someone just needs to come up with a more elegant way of implementing that idea. What that new way will look like is anybody’s guess.

Google Authorship was just another in a long list of projects that the company has done away with unceremoniously. It wasn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last. For now, as ever, creating quality content is still the best way to get noticed online.

Why Backlinks Still Matter

by SEO Savvy September 11th, 2014

In the wake of Google’s most recent algorithm updates earlier this year – which punished sites for aggressive link building strategies – the SEO community wondered if Google would kill off backlinks altogether, even the legitimate ones. However, despite the algorithm tweaks, Matt Cutts announced, “backlinks still really help in terms of making sure that we return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.”

So, do backlinks matter? The short answer: yes. Quality backlink building –creating the “good” backlinks that Cutts’ referred to in his announcement – can give your site a natural boost. Here’s what your business needs to know:

The Importance of Links

Despite the rumors of its demise, link building is still one of the best ways to improve search visibility and increase brand exposure. Amit Singhal, Google’s unofficial head of search, said, “Links are clearly an important signal about the importance of your content. They’re still very valuable.” The key, of course, is to have more “good” links on your site and fewer “bad” links.

Good v. Bad Links: What’s the Difference?

Links send positive signals to Google, which can help improve trust or quality signals for a domain. Link building also helps to create new relationships between businesses and websites. But not all links are created equal.

For example, years ago, SEO companies encouraged businesses to create keyword rich anchor text links. If you wanted to rank highly for “used car deals” then you would vary your links to feature these keywords as anchor text. These links are the perfect example of what not to do these days, as Google could penalize you for overusing keyword anchor text.

The same goes for the unrelated placement of links. It’s also important to think about what sites are linking to your website. For example, if you’ve got a lot of low quality links from directories that are not related to your industry or too many press release article links with exact match anchor text, Google may send you a manual action notification in Webmaster Tools.

Good Links: “Networking” with Peer Websites

Good links come from a related website that operates in the same niche as yours. Ideally, this site is an industry authority; it should already rank high in your industry, and be well known and trusted. When creating these links, do not use keyword rich anchor text. Instead, use your domain name or your company name as the anchor text and ensure the link is completely natural and makes sense within the context of the blog post or article.

For example, let’s say that your business is posting a short blog post on an industry website. The blog includes commentary on a major industry report, and your business happens to offer a service that is discussed in conjunction with this report analysis. It would be perfectly acceptable to link your business’s name directly to this specific service page. Based on both Cutts’ and Singhal’s commentary, this would be a “good” link that is completely natural and not spam – exactly the type of link you need to drive more traffic to your website and boost your trust with search engines.

Audience Quality v. Site Traffic Numbers: Which Matters More?

by SEO Savvy September 4th, 2014

As you may know all too well, not all website traffic is created equal. For example, if your site featured the latest meme front and center on your business’s home page, it might generate quite a bit of traffic. But unless your business model is based specifically around Internet memes, generating a bunch of meme-related traffic is pretty much useless for your bottom line. Balancing site traffic quantity with quality is not easy. Here’s how your business can get started on improving site traffic quality and quantity:

Quality matters

Are you attracting qualified leads or meaningless chatter? “Thousands of leads that generate little to no revenue are not the same as 100 leads that are worth $1 million each,” writes Doug Miller in an AdAge article about using smart key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate lead quality. And while KPIs like the number of unique visitors do matter, Miller reminds us that obsessing over these numbers to the exclusion of all else can be short sighted.

Increasing Targeted Traffic

Increasing web traffic is not the same as increasing qualified marketing leads. Let’s say your business sells hiking boots and you run a major PPC campaign for several weeks advertising a “shoe sale”. Your PPC ads may be very successful in driving traffic to your website, but a lot of these visitors could actually be searching for summer sandals, winter dress boots, children’s shoes – none of which they will find on your site. In this case, it’s important to not be led astray by simply increasing traffic. You would be better off running a PPC campaign with specific keyword phrases like “men’s hiking boot sale”. You may have less site traffic, but your conversion rates are likely to be higher.

Connecting with your target audience is the root of increasing target traffic and qualified prospects. Focusing on the quality of the content and messaging, whether is it is ad copy, blog posts or social media updates, is important if your customers are going to engage with your brand.

Starting small is part of the process. A brand frightened over a lack of traffic may scramble to appeal to the masses, but by casting too large of a net, may lose their ROI. Instead, in order to connect with qualified prospects, your website needs to deliver quality content and targeted messaging to a targeted audience. This starts with identifying channels for engaging your targets and focusing your efforts on those channels.

For example, if you know that your target customer prefers to read blog posts about industry news rather than long, descriptive whitepapers, publish one or two blog posts each week and keep the content easy-to-read by using bullet points and subheads. Or, if your target customer spends a lot of time checking social media, focus your energy on campaigns that involve engaging tweets and Facebook posts that prompts the reader to share your posts with others via email and social media.