Google announced a new update called BERT a few months ago and according to Google, this update has affected 10% of all results. To put it in context, it has changed the results of approx. 22 million searches every hour.

There are many of people related to Digital Marketing Company thinking like what we need to do with this update and how it will affect our website, so just to give you an idea of how big this update is, it’s the biggest update made by Google in the last 5 years after Rank-brain.

So, there is a good chance that it will affect your website too and if it has not made it till yet, it will eventually make an effect as soon as the traffic grows on your website.

But, before we go into the update and now how it can harm our SEO, let’s know what this update is all about.

What is BERT?

BERT stands for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transfers. In simple language, this means Google has updated its algorithm to better understand natural language processing (NLP).

How it affects searches?

BERT, one of the bigger updates of Google didn’t come in a day, it took a long training period and is the first unassisted NLP system. The basic meaning of BERT is how to read our language by understanding content, it crawls pages after pages to understand how words are grouped together and then stores this information. BERT learned how to read on Wikipedia and other similar sites. The main thing to give attention to here is that Wikipedia page is not optimized for search, of course, it has titles and descriptions with keywords, but the content is not optimized or stuffed. this way, we can understand that it’s a ground basic training to understand the context.

Here are a few examples that Google used to highlight the effect of the BERT on search queries.

Google BERT Algorithm Google BERT Search Algorithm

What can we learn from BERT?

BERT is not going to affect your queries that you are tracking, these are often 2- or 3-word phrases. It’s quite straight that Google understands the user’s intent. BERT is affecting only those long-tail keywords.

There are also many people telling you that there is no way to optimize for BERT and to a certain extent they are saying right. Trying to stuff more keywords to a page for this sort of artificial intelligence is futile and going to cause more damage than its worth. However, you will still need to include keywords in the article. Because, if your article does not mention the phrase somewhere, Google will not rank it.

Currently, we are heading to a more user-friendly and AI voice search word. With the popularity of Google Home and mini as well as the voice search available on the phone of everyone, it’s only a matter of time when people start to make voice search over traditional phrase search technique. And you still need to optimize your content for a human, but keep in mind that it’s still a robot that will deliver the result to you. So, you need to understand how to optimize your content and choose phrases accordingly.

The takeaway

BERT is not a massive update since Google has been continuously putting our updates that relate to a better search experience for the users. This recent update mainly focuses on creating useful, informative, authoritative, expertly curated and accurate information to the users.

If you lose traffic due to this update, you can either hire a SEO Services Company or look at the pages that dropped, the search queries for which you are not ranking anymore and go, adjust and optimize those content or create some new content that answers the questions people are looking for.

Dev Bhushan

Dev Bhushan

Digital Marketing Specialist at SEMReseller

  • SEO
18 Jan 2020

FOLLOW US ON

Latest Blogs

  • Law firm SEO

    How will AI change SEO in the next 5 years?

    If your business is heavily dependent on your website, you are likely wondering: Is AI going to take away my traffic? What about SEO?

  • Law firm SEO

    What is Semantic Search and How Do I Optimize for It?

    Have you once thought about how precisely Google could determine the information you were seeking even if your search was somewhat unclear or used non-standard words? It almost feels like the search engine is tapping into your thoughts!

  • Law firm SEO

    What is technical SEO and how do I audit my website?

    The secret of getting a good position on Google does not only involve great content. You may have the best post but if it is hosted on a slow-loading server, it will not get traffic from Google searches, nor will any user wait for it to load.

  • Law firm SEO

    The Ultimate Conversion Rate Optimization Checklist 2026:

    Business successes rely on conversions no matter what stage of operation your company currently has. Your upgrading techniques for conversions can boost your ability to capture target clients.

  • Law firm SEO

    Fix Crawling and Indexing Issues in Google Search Console

    Have you ever had the feeling that your website is the world's largest library hidden? Amazing content has been written, a stunning site has been designed, and you know very well that the information is needed by people. But when you do a Google search for it, it's not there. Annoying, isn't it?

  • Law firm SEO

    What is AI-powered SEO and How Does it Work?

    Everybody is familiar with the traditional game of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). First, you do keyword research, then write a post, create some backlinks, and finally pray that Google becomes aware of your existence. It seems like a drive with a map and hoping you wouldn't get missed at any point.

  • Law firm SEO

    How Does Core Web Vitals Impact Rankings?

    As soon as a Google user clicks to your website a clock starts to tick. If your site is slow or the text keeps moving while the user is reading or the button response at the other end is slow, then the user leaves your site. A single, irritated pressing of the "back" button means you lose traffic, interaction, and possibly even sales.

  • Law firm SEO

    How Do Search Engine Algorithms Work?

    When you type a question into Google and hit Enter, you're talking to one of the world's smartest computer programs. These computer programs are called search engine algorithms, and they are the secret formula for discovering the most suitable answer out of billions of web pages.

  • Law firm SEO

    Graphic Design is My Passion: Top 20 Origin and Best Meme

    The "Graphic Design is My Passion" meme is a funny internet joke about bad design. It started making fun of poorly designed graphics, but over time, it expanded a lot. People use this meme to joke about cringy, messy, or strange designs. The phrase reads confidently, but when combined with a terrible design, it creates a funny comparison. The meme started on Tumblr in 2014, showing a poorly drawn green frog and ugly text. It has expanded since then, inspiring many copies on the internet.

  • Law firm SEO

    Future of SEO with AI: A Complete Guide

    AI presents an undeniable transformation for the future of SEO by programming routine tasks. It enables researchers to boost keyword analysis and improve content efforts and performance evaluation. Yet, people continue to be essential for interpreting user needs and producing high-quality materials.

Did You Find This Information Useful?

Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *