What are the implications and risks of the new BERT search algorithm?

The primary goal of search engine developers is to optimize and simplify search while providing answers that are as accurate and relevant to user queries as possible. In simple terms, this means asking a question and receiving a clear answer, just as happens in everyday communication. While this is easy for people, teaching a machine to understand language in the same way is a complex task. That is why BERT is considered the most significant search update of the last five years and a major breakthrough in the history of search.

How search works now: before the launch of BERT, search was based on keywords and phrases, providing an approximate understanding of the query. BERT, however, is not designed to simply find “words” in a text. Its purpose is to understand their meaning and natural language context.

Understanding meaning is achieved by analyzing key phrases together with additional words. These may include prepositions and common expressions. The system is also designed to model relationships between different sentences. Two sentences are taken from a piece of text and analyzed to determine whether the second sentence is a logical continuation of the first or merely random.

The introduction of BERT has affected rankings, relevance evaluation, and the display of search snippets. Therefore, those involved in website promotion will need to make certain adjustments in order to maintain their rankings and traffic. What should be done?

1. Write content in a simple, clear, and грамотical manner. Reduce the number of definitions; terms should remain consistent and be associated with specific words. Sentences within a text should complement and continue one another, maintaining logical connections. To prevent BERT from treating sentences as unrelated, use transitional phrases such as “As mentioned earlier,” “Therefore,” and similar expressions. This demonstrates that the entire text is logically structured and carries a specific meaning.
2. To ensure your website appears in voice search results, use conversational language patterns and make your content closer to natural speech, providing detailed answers to the questions users are interested in.
3. If a page should contain a link, place it within text that is contextually related to the destination section or page.
4. To expand the semantic relevance of a page, use synonymous keywords and related search queries. Pay attention to search suggestions and use the words and phrases that users search for most frequently.
5. To diversify your website and improve the quality of the information you provide, add photos, videos, and infographics.
6. Content and design should complement each other so that website navigation remains simple and intuitive.
7. Pay attention to metadata by describing the page content in snippets using clear and understandable language.

If the search algorithm works as intended, the quality of search results across national domains will improve significantly. Content quality is now taken into account when ranking websites. The highest positions will be given to resources that provide real value to users. Therefore, page content should be logical, informative, and easy to understand.

Forewarned is forearmed.