Latest Google Search Updates Driven By AI

Since it came into our lives more than twenty years ago, Google has changed how we learn, communicate, and access information. Despite already having a long history of updates already behind them, Google is still looking for more ways to improve the search experience. So the latest update to Google Search will be of little surprise to SEO experts around the world. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting. In fact, these latest Google Search updates show just how advanced tech is becoming and how they are opening up opportunities for businesses to find even more success.

Google Search Update October 2020

Over the 22 years, Google has made multiple changes to their algorithms to ensure users have the best search experience. As tech improved over the years, so did the algorithms, and it appears Google is continuing that trend. With huge and some very recent advancements being made in AI, Google is utilizing it to advance its search engine. Quite simply, AI is making it possible to find what you are looking for even easier now.

Google announced the latest updates on the 15^th of October, and while some of the updates announced have already been launched, there were plenty of fresh updates that SEO experts were ready to get their teeth into.

We are very excited to see what the positive impact these latest updates will have. So, without further ado, let’s jump straight into looking at the latest Google Search updates!

Changes to BERT

Google has announced that “BERT is now used in almost every query in English” rather than just 10% of queries. This means that you are getting relevant and high-quality results for almost all of your questions.

What is BERT?

BERT is one of Google’s algorithms. It stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers and helps Google understand natural language much better in conversational search. As the English language can be notoriously tricky to understand, the update announced in October of 2019 meant that Google could start matching more conversational search queries with the right results.

You can learn more about BERT on our blog.

However, this wasn’t the only update. There were several other exciting advancements to search ranking, which were all possible through the research and development of AI.

New advancements in Search Ranking

Spelling

Google relies on a user entering keywords to pull up the relevant results. However, you won’t be alone in typing in a query only to be met with the subtext underneath, “did you mean:”.

Google puts a huge focus on their ability to understand misspelt words and phrases to still provide you with the results you need, which they explained in the update. However, the most astonishing aspect of this latest update from Google was the data they provided alongside it.

One in every ten queries every day is incorrectly spelt.

With around 3.5 billion searches taking place every day, that is a lot of relevant results that could be missing out.

Due to so many spelling errors taking place, Google has announced a new spelling algorithm. It will use a deep neural net to improve their ability to decipher any instances of misspelt words and phrases, all under three milliseconds. In terms of improvements made to understanding spelling mistakes over the years, Google is claiming this latest update to be better than all previous improvements.

Passage Indexing

As we all know, Google allows us to search for everything and anything. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean Google will pull up what you need for specific searches. Even Google themselves admitted that specific searches are the hardest to get right, as your answer might be embedded deep within the content on a web page.

Google’s Raghavan explains:

“Very specific searches can be the hardest to get right, since sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for. This technology will improve 7 percent of search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally.”

(Prabhakar, 2020)

Their latest update could change all that, though. Google has announced they have had a breakthrough in being able to index individual passages from websites and not just the web pages themselves.

As Google starts to roll this update out globally, it will improve 7% of search queries. If there was ever a more critical time to focus on producing excellent content, then it is now.

Finding that needle in the haystack has proven to be a challenge Google has succeeded with, as they begin to understand specific searches and the relevancy of them a lot more than they have previously.

To ensure that you are ready for when it comes out next month, start by making sure your text passages are clear to read, understand, and not a mess. If you need help with producing your content, get in touch with our team today to ensure you can make the most of the passages update. We are excited to see what the impact of such an update has.

Subtopics

The updates just keep on coming, and this one is another interesting one, which will start rolling out before the end of the year.

Google has announced that it has applied neural nets to understand subtopics around interests. The reason why? They want to help “deliver a great diversity of content” when you search for a broad term. This will mean more results show up that Google thinks you might be interested in.

For businesses, this means a greater chance of showing up in more organic search resultsOrganic search results are the natural, un-paid search results for a keyword on Google., and that can only be a positive.

COVID-19 Information Update

COVID-19 has changed so much of our lives already, from how we work to how we see our loved ones. However, when this pandemic bought about lockdowns across the world, Google started providing updates to help businesses throughout, and it appears they haven’t stopped thinking about how they can make it better.

There were several standout updates:

Live busyness updates

While Google Maps has been able to provide you with information regarding how busy a restaurant or shop is for a long time now, due to business hours changing for many places and social distancing measures becoming the norm, the data wasn’t completely accurate in making predictions. However, with Live Busyness, Google takes data from the previous 4-6 weeks, which they plan to incorporate into other features.

Health Help

The great thing about this update is that it allows you to see information before searching for a place. If you see a place is too busy, then the map will show you where you could go instead. You can also look up the precautions a business is taking to keep you and other customers safe. This could be information about facemasks, temperature checking, making reservations, and taking details down for track and trace. Knowing all this, and without even searching, means you can maintain social distancing and feel comfortable about heading out.

Live Views

With COVID-19 bringing lots of restrictions into our lives, such as whether a business is open and busy, you can discover all the helpful information you need about a business by using the Live Views feature.

Updating Your GMB

Google has even made it easy for local business to update their information online with their Duplex conversational technology. For businesses that currently have a GMB profile and want to make the most of this latest update, our team will be more than happy to talk to you about it.

Key moments

It seems like we never have enough hours in the day to achieve everything, but another Google update is trying to help us. The key moments in videos, which was launched a year ago, is going to be used in 10% of searches on Google thanks to new AI technology by the end of this year. Google has said they can understand the “deep semantics of a video,” and this allows them to them automatically find those key moments.

Google has compared those moments to the chapters of a book. You can open the video and find the key moment you want.

Search with your camera and voice

Google doesn’t just restrict itself to typing out search queries; you have numerous ways to find what you want and all within a matter of seconds.

Google Lens

Google shopping might be changing forever, given this latest update to Google Lens. Now your camera can do more than just take pictures. You can discover products, get help with homework problems, and virtually bring your dream product to your home.

With the Google lens, you can take a picture of a product, and Google will pull up similar items that you can buy. If you’re not sure about an item, well, Google will now let you view said item in your home thanks to its latest AI update. Fortunately, with these updates, searching and shopping has never been easier.

Sing to Google

We’ve all been there with a song stuck in our head, but we just can’t remember anything but the tune. While you might have some fun singing it out loud to those around you, now you have a much better option. You can hum to search with Google thanks to AI. It will match the melody you sing to the right song (no matter how out of tune you sing it!).

It is clear that Google wants to offer as many ways for people to search and find the information they need at the drop of a hat. AI is making this possible for Google to analyse and find the correct information for everyone. As AI continues to develop, we cannot wait to see what else Google will do to change the way we search forever.

If you would like to know more about how these latest updates will affect your business, get in touch with us today so you can have a positive outcome.

Image credits: Google Blog