5 Things You Need to Know About Google RankBrain

Automation is truly hitting its stride all across the world wide web and beyond.

Mass SMS messaging is now both more useful and infinitely more exciting thanks to automation-friendly platforms like Textpedite, you can schedule posts across all your social media accounts from one central website, and now Google has stepped forward to confirm the existence of its very own version of artificial intelligence: RankBrain.

Just what is RankBrain and why should you care?

RankBrain: Dawn of the Computer Age?

Computers are hardly new, but until now we’ve pretty much dealt with user-directed technology that seems to act independently but that in reality only responds to coded commands.

RankBrain was developed by Google as a “machine-learning technology” – essentially artificial intelligence that is initially programmed before it eventually self-commands and even learns on its own.

What does it actually do?

RankBrain was built to read unfamiliar long-tail keyword combinations, slang terminology, or even grammatically confusing entries and make educated guesses as to what those unfamiliar terms actually mean.

In essence, RankBrain isn’t just delivering what you ask for, it’s also attempting to give you what you actually want.

RankBrain is Only Part of the Algorithm

To be clear: RankBrain isn’t Google’s search algorithm but rather just one small part of it. Google’s algorithm uses about 200 “signals” to evaluate a website and determine its ranking.

While Google takes a certain amount of delight in keeping the details of those signals pretty hush hush, the mere fact that they’ve acknowledged RankBrain tells us that it’s pretty important.

It’s Not Quite Automated

RankBrain does perform some actions all on its own, but experts say it also has some help – at least for now.

After RankBrain encounters new words and ideas and connects them to entries already in the bot’s vast database, Google’s techs step in to verify those connections and make corrections as needed.

This type of recalibration not only builds a more accurate vocabulary, it also serves to fine tune RankBrain’s “thought” process, ideally make it increasingly precise as time passes.

It’s Necessary – And It’s Working

While many people are ditching voice calls in favor of text, the increasingly mobile nature of our society (72 percent of consumers say they want mobile-friendly sites – a clear indication of both how and where we’re accessing the internet) means that just as many people are using voice-to-text capabilities instead of actually typing out their SMS messages and search queries.

The often garbled search terms that result are just one reason why technology like RankBrain is an important innovation.

According to one notable report, post-RankBrain Google is already better at providing appropriate results to confusing queries than its pre-RankBrain counterpart.

It’s Just Another Tool

Not to downplay RankBrain’s considerable cool factor, but at the end of the day, this still-mysterious new addition to the Google family is basically just another tool you can use to pump up SEO and get more people to your site.

At some point, marketing experts will learn how to cater to RankBrain much in the same way they learn the fundamentals of managing a Google AdWords campaign, or maybe the lesson will be a little more nebulous.

After all, the best thing we can learn from RankBrain is to create content in a more organic, consumer-oriented fashion. Are we showing our audience what they want to see or are we writing for the robots and losing our message in the process?

Now that you know a little more about Google’s latest innovation (though there are sure to be new things on the very near horizon), what do you think of RankBrain? Will it change how you approach SEO?

This post was written by Sophorn Chhay, the marketing guy at  Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that allows users to customize their one-to-one marketing efforts by interconnecting and optimizing all digital platforms.

As an innovator in two-way SMS/MMS marketing, Trumpia’s mission is to empower brands and public figures with interactive access to their audiences, reaching targeted affinity groups in a personal way.

Trumpia delivers world-class content such as video, ticketing, polling, products sales, contests and giveaways. Jumpstart your business by grabbing a free copy of Sophorn’s powerful Mobile Marketing Success Kit.