Google AI "makes search results more relevant than ever"- study Netimperative - latest digital marketing news

Google's use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to better understand people's search intentions and surface the most relevant results is paying off according to new research. Today's search results are more relevant than ever, while many simplistic techniques that marketers use to artificially help their pages rank higher ‒ such as collecting more backlinks and increasing the number of times keywords are mentioned in text – are becoming less effective. The findings come from Searchmetrics' annual study of Google Ranking Factors which analysed the top 20 search results for 10,000 keywords on Google.com. The aim of the analysis (carried out every year since 2012) is to identify the key factors that high ranking web pages have in common, providing generalised insights and benchmarks to help marketers, SEO professionals and webmasters. "Google revealed last year that it is turning to sophisticated AI and machine-learning techniques, such as its RankBrain system, to help it better understand the real intention behind the words that searchers enter in the search box and make its results more relevant," explains Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics' Founder and CTO.