RankBrain – What you need to know
There seems to be a lot of information on the subject of Google’s new RankBrain. This is my overview of the facts and guess work that it surrounding this ‘machine learning’ Artificial Intelligence system. So some six months after it’s announcement, what do we know, and what do we think we know?
Facts about RankBrain
- Google confirmed the existance of RankBrain on 26th October 2015
- RankBrain is a machine learning system – it is designed to teach itself about search rather than have human programming rules
- It is already part of Google’s algorithm – yes now, yes worldwide
- RankBrain is currently ONE of the THREE most important ranking signals – A Google hangout in March with Andrey Lipattsev confirmed this is the case – I’ve linked to the SE Roundtable Article with the embedded video below. Andrey also confirms during the Video that in no particular order the other two factors are “Content and Links”.
- Andrey confirms in the Video that it doesn’t work in the way that 3 Links is X important and 5 Keywords is Y important and RankBrain is a Z factor and you then multiply them – It is trying to get better at understanding natural language, especially with the growth of voice searches
Opinions & Theories About Rank Brain
- RankBrain will continue to evolve and become more important to Google’s search results
- RankBrain is an evolution of the Panda & Hummingbird algorithm updates that understands user intent and serves a better quality result, it may already be an integral part of the Hummingbird algorithm
- The way the AI system works will lead to less spam filled websites and black hat techniques to boost their rankings
- Keep a close eye on Google’s own Search Console for new technical site improvements, their suggestions are there for a reason
Finally, “watch this space”, as they say – The community doesn’t really understand RankBrain just yet.
More Resources & Further Reading