What is Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm? and its impacts on the future search results
Introduction to Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm & Google Search AI
Google is celebrating its 20 years of success. At an event in San Francisco on 24th September 2018, Google has announced new features and algorithm which will transform the future search result scenario, search engine optimization techniques and strategies.
What you should know about Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm?
Google has never missed a chance to amuse its users, and on its 20th anniversary, Google has bought something for SEO lovers and Digital marketers. Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm is a perfect blend of search engine optimization techniques and Artificial engine. Now; the Google will focus on the synonyms and the concept behind the search term.
The new Google algorithm is going to influence the ancient search engine optimization techniques and will deliver more comprehensive results.
Because Google will focus on understanding the concept of the page from the content instead of the keywords. Earlier Google used to pick up the keywords of the page to understand the concept.
Even though the basic and existing ranking criteria like suitable link structure, external-internal linking and page loading speed will not affect this new Google algorithm update.
NOTE: Rankbrain and Neural matching both are different entities of google core algorithm system.
21st March 2019 UPDATE about difference between Rankbrain and Neural Matching
Google just recently tweeted about the what is difference between Rankbrain and Neural Matching parts of their core system algorithm design.
Following is the official tweet from Google that summarized the difference and functionality of Rankbrain Vs. Neural Matching:
Let’s understand what exactly is google’s neural matching?
Artificial Intelligence has been the favorite of Google since last year. The best example is their efforts to showcase that their technology can perform tasks-independently and make human-like conversations. Now; Google is using AI technology to generate diverse search results by analyzing the query terms better.
Document Relevance Ranking
The latest research paper called Deep Relevance Ranking which uses Enhanced Document Query Instruction. The paper has the explanation of the working of ad-hoc Document Query Interactions; as a result, it explains the accomplishment of Neural Matching on Google’s search engine. This whole concept is to spam irrelevant results and track down the relevant search results.
What will the impact of this new Google algorithm on SEO?
Online search is going to be the most personalized than ever before.
As Google can now understand the question based and exact search terms better online search is going to be more relevant than before. This will result in the development of new SEO strategies as per the Artificial Intelligence algorithm. With the popularity of image and voice search implementing Artificial Intelligence has become a must for websites.
Content is the king: Again
Adding synonyms used to be a variation of keyword spamming, but now Google is going to use synonyms to understand the content of a page.
Quality content is much more important than placing the relevant keywords in the right place. Communicating your thoughts behind a piece of content is going to be the major focus of writer and marketers.
Google’s official announcement has made it clear:
“…we’ve now reached the point where neural networks can help us take a major leap forward from understanding words to understanding concepts. Neural embeddings, an approach developed in the field of neural networks, allow us to transform words to fuzzier representations of the underlying concepts, and then match the concepts in the query with the concepts in the document. We call this technique neural matching.”
The latest Google algorithm update is going to rank documents or web pages based on the content and search query terms. This distinctly doesn’t mean that content creators have to add synonyms of the keywords in their document.
Instead; they have to understand the difference between search terms and keywords. The content creators have to focus on the fact that Google now needs content based on user intent and apprehension of how a page can be beneficial for users.
What are the major future search-related announcements at Google’s 20th-anniversary event:
This 20th Anniversary Google has made some major announcements related to search optimization.
Google new algorithm was just a part of the announcement; there are multiple new features like saving the content or ideas that user finds helpful, resuming the work from where the user has left last time and getting relevant suggestions for the search.
Check out the newly announced search features & improving visual content usefulness based on Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm combining with Google Search AI ( Artificial Intelligence) & ML ( Machine Learning) advancement.
List of New Search Features announced at Google 20th Anniversary event:
- Search Activity Cards
- Collections in Search
- Dynamic organization of Search results
- New topic layer in the Knowledge Graph
- Google Discover – Google Feed Version 2.0
- AMP stories
- Featured videos in Search
- Google Image Search Visualization
- Google Lens Integration with Google Images using AI
- Job Search Pathway Enhancement via Google Search
- AI-enabled flood forecasting & Public Crisis SOS Alerts by Google
Now let’s deep dive into some of the significant features and understand what’s new they gonna bring in the search result:
Search Activity Cards
Google serves search history option in the settings panel; Google has added a new feature for easy access to search history for the users. To help the users pick-up the search they have left Google has introduced Activity cards.
Whenever a user revisits a query which is related to a task of the past. Google will display a card with all the relevant pages the user had already visited and all the previous queries the user had initiated on that topic.
How activity cards feature will be useful?
Activity cards are going to be very useful to retrace the search when the user is not able to remember the pages or sites which had useful information. This card won’t appear for every search; Google AI for Search has made it possible to display the activity cards only when they are useful.
In addition; the user will have total control over the display results of the activity cards. The users can be pausing seeing a card, they can remove its trace from search history or they can choose not to see it all together. All the Activity cards will be available in the search section by the end of this year.
Collections in Search
Google has introduced “ My Saves” or “ Saved Pages” last year only, and now to implement this feature in a better way Google has introduced “ Collections”. Google has introduced an easy way to navigate through the long searches; just add the useful content to collections.
The latest version of collection allows the users to add content into collections from activity cards as well. This will make it easier for the users to organize the content they want to revisit. The user can tap and open any collection and a list of cards will pop-up displayed in two columns instead of a single row.
How collection in search will be useful?
The content a user has saved will be used by the company to serve better search & personalization in search; Google will display results based on the collection. The users can create a new collection easily or even move the content between different collections. The user will even get a list from the Google maps list and the favorite list as well. The collections; as I have mentioned earlier are nothing but a compact way of displaying the saved results.
Dynamic Organization of Search results
The Advancement in Google Search AI has introduced dynamic organization of search results; as a result, the user will know what to explore next.
How Google’s Dynamic Result works & helpful?
This feature is helpful when searching for a new topic or learning something; in that scenario, the user is totally unaware of what to read next. Google will place the search results dynamically to help the user learn more. From a single search, a user can explore all the related and relevant information from the web.
Earlier, Google used to display information within a set of predetermined categories. But now Google can display the subtopics intelligently. The results tab will be fresh and updated always as it will keep learning constantly.
Whenever a new information will get published; the dynamic tabs will get refreshed immediately. The dynamic page organization feature is already live for some of the popular topics and the company is looking forward to expanding its reachability.
In short; Google will now generate cards dynamically for any given topic and this will be visible at the top of the search results. As a result; Google will display all-in-one information of any given topic a user is searching for and all the related information that the user might search in future.
New topic layer in the Knowledge Graph
Google already has its knowledge graph for the understanding of the connection between things, places, people and facts. Now; the company has added a new layer to understand the topic space.
How newly added topic layer will deliver more accurate and personalized search results using Google AI?
The new topic layer is designed in such a way that it can understand any topic pace deeply and can monitor how interest can develop over time with the growth of familiarity and expertise.
The most relevant articles and videos are identified across the web and based on that hundreds and thousands of subtopics are created.
Google will make sure that the content should be fresh, useful and evergreen. This includes one more factor for the SEO expert to keep in mind; Keep the content fresh and updated.
Once the subtopics are identified; Google tries to understand the pattern and how these subtopics relate to each other. This will result in displaying search results related to the user’s query.
“Google Discover” – New features, name & look to Google Feed:
With better search results; Google is focusing on better feeds as well. Google feed got new features, look, and name: DISCOVER.
How does Google Discover work?
As per Google; they have designed Discover in a way to show the users the results they want to see; even before they start looking for it. The new look contains a header section to explain why the particular card is being displayed to the user, with an icon to follow that topic also these icons will be visible in the search results and finally a control icon to help the users decide how much they want to see.
What are the advantages of Google Discover over Google Feed?
Along with the fresh content; Google Discover will also display evergreen content just like the topic layer. The user will not only see the content which is new on the web but also the content which is new for the user.
Advancement in Google Search AI will result in the prediction of the level of expertise of the user on a topic and then it will tailor content based on those predictions.
Other newly announced search features & changes
In addition to above all important feature update, there are many notable visual search changes announced by Google, that will improve visual content usefulness in the search result. These features include:
- AMP Stories, open source library for the publisher. We can say that Google has indirectly taken inspiration from the famous visual content-centric social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
- Featured Videos in Search: Google will display a preview of videos & it’s different sections to the user. Featured videos with on-point time sections will be shown to the user according to the search queries so that user can easily identify relevancy of video to their search intent.
- Google Image Search Update: Google has made changes in the Google Image Search interface as well as in image search algorithm; by which user can easily find visual content and able to take action on related images.
- Google Lens Integration with Google Images using AI: Now people can easily identify any object, text or get more information about places using google lens functionality into google image search.
- Job Search Pathways Enhancement via Google Search: Google has enhanced its Job Search Capability by announcing new changes in Google search for ease of finding nearest Job Opening & Training Internships. This initiative named as “Pathways“.
- AI-enabled flood forecasting & Public Crisis SOS Alerts by Google: Google added AI-enabled flood forecasting search feature in the prior year’s announced crisis SOS Alerts & Public Alerts. Google will use advanced data modelling technique for flood path & affected areas and also estimated the damage. Currently, it is launched in India with the partnership of nation’s Central Water Commision.
Now it is your turn!
Do you think your website is not visible on the first page of a search result? and not able to maximize business ROI for online marketing investments?
Achieving Google ranking and maximizing ROI takes more than just SEO experience.
This might be because of two reasons:
- First; if you are doing Search engine optimization of your website by yourself then you need to stop doing that. SEO of a website must be handled by an expert and experienced team.
- The second reason can be your Search engine optimization service provider is still using old techniques. Always make sure you are working with a team of Search engine optimization service providers that follows and uses latest techniques instead of amateur freelancers.
You have landed at the right place!
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I am working as Sr. SEO Specialist at Samarpan Infotech. As a digital marketing person (and Tech Geek also), I am passionate to learn & implement new things and keep myself updated with the latest trends. Apart from marketing, I love to read tech & current affairs news.
