Google BERT Update – All you need to know about it

On 25th October 2019, Google rolled out a new update known as BERT update. A lot of people are tweeting and talking about this update. But a lot are not able to understand what this is all about. Do not worry. This article will help you understand everything about the BERT update. In order to understand the BERT update, you need to first understand the way in which search engines operate and what are updates.

Understanding how search engines operates in order to understand Google BERT

We all use Google to find many things, ranging from a new song to some education content or a fast food center. Google plays such an important role in our lives that if you want to tell someone to find something on the internet, you won’t say the person to use a search engine and find information, you will use the phrase “Google it”.

Whenever you search a word/phrase in search engine query box, the search engine results in a list of results relevant to your search. The search engine works on algorithms that match your searched query with the indexed results in search engines. Search engines constantly crawl through web and index relevant quality web pages in their memory.

You can read about how search engine works in detail at https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate

The algorithms used by the search engines are updated regularly to enhance the search results and provide the user the best quality relevant results. This phenomenon when Google updates its algorithm is known as Google Update popularly. These updates affect the ranking of websites a lot.

Google wants the website to follow guidelines and perform white-hat SEO. But, many website owners try to rank their websites higher on Google by finding out some trick and they thereby try to cheat Google’s guidelines. Google penalizes such web pages and they are not indexed.

With the advent of AI/ML, the world is changing. Voice searches are increasing and smart devices are widely used. By keeping this changing behavior of people, Google rolled out the BERT update.

Let us understand this BERT update in detail.

What is the Google BERT update?

BERT stands for “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers”. It is a neural-network-based technique, a deep learning algorithm which is based on NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology. Sounds Complicated?

In simple words, the BERT update is going to affect 10% of queries. This means that this is one of the biggest updates in the way Google works in the last 5 years.

Till now, Google used to match the words in the query and provide relevant results on the basis of the words used in the search query. This means that the content was matched to deliver the search results. BERT update will match the CONTEXT in which the user is searching and not only the CONTENT.

Giving consumers a delightful and easy experience is the key to success. In this digital era, understanding the consumer’s needs and empathizing with them helps in delivering value. That is what Google BERT update tends to do. It will understand the nuances and context of words in search queries and better match those queries with more relevant results.

Google BERT is going to affect featured snippets too at a great extent.

Let us look at a few examples.

3 Ways to Optimize for Google BERT

I have been doing SEO for the last 10 years and I have seen a drastic change in how search engine results have evolved over time. I have faced the Panda and Penguin updates and my blogs have ranked irrespective of the update. Let me share with you the ways you can optimize for BERT.

#1. Follow Google’s Guidelines (Do white-hat SEO)

It is very obvious that white-hat SEO is the key to success. Black-hat SEO can give you temporary results, but in the long run, you will not be able to sustain.

Ensure that you have proper technical SEO in place. Optimize your On-Page SEO and ensure that the web page is mobile-responsive. Avoid keyword-stuffing and purchasing of backlinks.

Know more here – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en

#2. Write content for readers and not only for search engine bots.

Usually, a very common mistake that most people make is the fact that they write content for search engine bots and focus excessively on the keywords. But, time has changed. Google’s algorithm gives more importance to the content which is developed keeping the users in mind.

And with BERT, much more emphasis would be on the content which fits the context. So, write content that helps users.

#3. Focus on “long-tail keywords” as they help in understanding the context of the search.

Long-tail keywords will help NLP technology to understand the context of the search. When a person searches for “Best digital marketing institutes in Delhi”, he is expecting to get the list of best institutes in Delhi and not India. So, focus and try to use long-tail keywords.

This will ensure that the person finds the exact result which he was looking for. This will also enhance conversion rates.

Conclusion

As BERT is based on NLP, it will evolve more in the coming years. The SEO world is going to see a drastic transformation and people who fail to keep themselves updated with the latest updates will fail.

I hope this article gave you a clear overview of what the BERT update is all about and how to optimize your website for the BERT update.

Feel free to share your insights about Google BERT update in the comments section.