BERT: Google’s Latest Algorithm Update that Can Impact Your Local Business

Google recently announced the slow roll-out of one of their latest algorithms that will impact local businesses and how they appear within the search results.

Named BERT, for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, this latest algorithm update is a form of AI that allows Google to better understand the relationship between elements of language and a search term.

In short, this update will allow Google to become more precise and accurate with long-tail search terms.

Google lists some good examples of searches on their blog here 

To launch these improvements, we (Google) did a lot of testing to ensure that the changes actually are more helpful. Here are some of the examples that showed up our evaluation process that demonstrate BERT’s ability to understand the intent behind your search.

Here’s a search for “2019 brazil traveler to usa need a visa.” The word “to” and its relationship to the other words in the query are particularly important to understanding the meaning. It’s about a Brazilian traveling to the U.S., and not the other way around. Previously, our algorithms wouldn’t understand the importance of this connection, and we returned results about U.S. citizens traveling to Brazil. With BERT, Search is able to grasp this nuance and know that the very common word “to” actually matters a lot here, and we can provide a much more relevant result for this query.

Why Did Google Release BERT?

At first glance, the update seems to be focused around casual, voice-related search instances. Whereas with services like Alexa and Siri voice search, you’re more inclined to search with longer phrases or questions, as opposed to more sisynct searches that you would normally perform from a desktop or keypad on your mobile device.

However, in the examples Google provides, we’re at times looking at quite broken language (“2019 brazil traveler to usa need a visa”) which suggests another aim of BERT is to better predict and make contextual assumptions about the meaning behind complex search terms.

From BrightLocal:

Concepts and context are at the heart of BERT, and it’s an encouraging sign that Google has taken steps to better understand the average, perhaps less web-savvy searcher. For the SEO world, though, it’s a sign that Google is developing the skills and confidence to ultimately return a single, perfect result in response to a complex, niche search term.

BrightLocal

How Might BERT Affect Local Businesses and Local Search Results?

Like most Google algorithm updates, the initial roll-out is often slow and does not have a wide affect on businesses. While Google did mention that the update will impact 1 in 10 searches, it’s almost a certain that it will have some affect on local results given that more and more search queries happen at the local level.

You can expect some fluxuation in your search rankings, so be prepared. While the results should not be permanent until the roll-out is completed, it’s important to prepare yourself if you track your local search rankings with a fine-toothed comb.

As Barry Schwartz recommends in his piece on BERT for Search Engine Land,

“Check to see your search traffic changes sometime next week and see how much your site was impacted by this change. If it was, drill deeper into which landing pages were impacted and for which queries. You may notice that those pages didn’t convert and the search traffic Google sent those pages didn’t end up actually being useful.”

In Summary

In the end, like with most Google algorithm updates, BERT will likely affect those that tend to go against the grain of Google Webmaster Guidelines and over stuff keywords in their content for search engines and those that optimize their pages for USERS (relevant information, facts, data, analysis) will come out ahead.