What is the Significance of Google RankBrain?

Google, yet again, has unequivocally announced that they’ll now be monitoring search results using an AI system called RankBrain, helping further the development of their renowned search algorithm. The process has actually already begun as Google noted that a “substantial percentage” of the search entries that Google were faced with in the past few months were taken care of using RankBrain. You probably haven’t noticed any significant difference just yet, however, with both Google’s plans and their recent available data, RankBrain looks to be making the web a more convenient place to navigate.

You may be asking yourself, if RankBrain has already been implemented and we haven’t noticed anything different, what purpose does it serve? How is it relevant to me?

The Fundamentals

Essentially, RankBrain is a form of artificial intelligence that is working in unison with Google’s current search algorithms to produce better search results. RankBrain will learn more about how and why people search by using mathematical processes and it’s knowledge of language semantics and plans to implement it’s finding to future search results. The difference between RankBrain and the way Google search works now is that RankBrain boasts the ability to improve itself over a period of time, as opposed to the current search process that’s programmed to respond to specific situations in predetermined ways.

What It’s Not

Google, as a company, is extremely complex with a wide variety of products that all plan to exhibit some sort of upward trajectory. In order to better understand what RankBrain is, you must first understand what it isn’t:

Google Knowledge Graph, another form of Google AI, is completely unassociated with RankBrain.

Google has run plenty of updates for their search algorithm. RankBrain is not one of those updates. Hummingbird (the current search algorithm) will be working along side rank brain to provide Google’s users with improved search results.

RankBrain isn’t a new and improved search engine. It also doesn’t plan to make any changes to the current search process a user would engage in.

This ought to be seemingly obvious, however, RankBrain is not a robot. It is software, not hardware. Perhaps the reasoning behind pointing this out is because people often associate artificial intelligence with robots. It doesn’t have a conscious; it’s simply mathematical equations that will become more effective and efficient as time passes.

Today’s Ranking Signals

According to the Bloomberg article, which made the news of RankBrain public, RankBrain can be considered a new ranking signal. Apparently, RankBrain will be the third most influential ranking signal, which means it will have a heavy bearing on the ranking of a page. For the sake of both its effectiveness and reputation, Google has, for the most part, kept the public in the dark when it concerns the processes of its ranking algorithm. Today, we still are unaware of what the first two most important ranking signals are. Considering there are a ton of different ranking signals, potentially thousands of sub-signals, this can only attest to the significance of RankBrain’s influence on page rankings.

RankBrain’s Plans to Improve Search

Considering the influence RankBrain will have in producing search results, it’s important. But what is it doing to make our search experience any better?

The major improvement is seemingly the way in which Google will handle the more vague or unclear questions people will attempt to find an answer too. The example used in the original Bloomberg article is spot on; “What’s the title of a consumer at the highest level of a food chain” as opposed to the more concise query, “top level of the food chain.” The longer search entry is more difficult for Google’s current search algorithm to understand as opposed to the latter which is handled in a sufficient manner.

After a period of time, RankBrain will begin to understand the correlation between the long, vague, difficult-to-understand phrases with the more concise phrases to provide the user with more effective search results.

RankBrain’s Affect on SEO

Although RankBrain is categorized as a significant ranking signal and is undeniable a key cog in the future plans for Google search, it won’t be making a big impact on SEO as a whole. For the most part, RankBrain will have its primary focus on better understanding the imprecise long-tail keywords, which means that it will do little to effect rankings. You’ll still be best suited to implement your traditional processes to get your page ranked. If you’d like to be optimizing for search entries like baseball, you’ll be more likely to rank for a vague query like “that game that you hit a ball with a bat and run around the bases.” However, this means that long-tail keyword strategies may be a little more difficult to implement.

Just like any other newly introduced Google feature, this one will continue to develop and improve itself as time goes by. Coming from a consumer’s standpoint, you may not notice these changes, but they will be significant in determining the results of a search page and they may have an impact on the future of search algorithms alike. Per Andrew Ruditser of MAXPlaces Marketing, it should be duly noted that you shouldn’t be making any radical changes to your SEO campaign, but you should keep an eye on your rankings and any other news concerning Google’s RankBrain.