BERT’s Latest Improvement Should be Good For Law Firms

Google has been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) progressively since 2018.  Google “BERT” is a Google update powered by AI. The primary function of BERT is to help computers understand language more like humans. Since BERT began in 2018 Google has consistently made improvements that make SEO more important than ever to your marketing strategy. Google currently uses BERT in nearly 100% of search inquiries versus 10% of inquiries last year. 

One of their most recent BERT updates allows Google to index passages on a web page instead of index based on the entire page. This update is expected to come by the end of 2020 and will display a higher diversity of web pages for wide search queries. This change will be especially beneficial for Law Firms who have multiple pages of content and practice within multiple legal areas. This update helps Google show pages where the answer to a search is deep within the content of a web page.  Since Google can now rank a specific passage, this could be a huge shift in how web pages are ranked. This update, coming by the end of 2020, will show a greater diversity of web pages for broad search queries. 

If you’re competing for a broad topic (like DUI Arrest), you may want to make sure your subtopic pages (2nd DUI Arrest) are well optimized. With this update, the passages in your content about 2nd DUI Arrest will be found and used to help optimize your web page. This update reinforces the importance of writing content that focuses on user intent and natural language.

Here’s how Google explains it:

“We’ve applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which helps deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad.

As an example, if you search for “home exercise equipment,” we can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content for you on the search results page. We’ll start rolling this out by the end of this year.”

Once again BERT is showing us why high quality content is still king! If you want to follow recent Google Search updates, you can follow them on twitter at Google Search Liaison.