Travel brands should ensure they consider the search "intent" of prospective customers when optimising their pages, as Google turns more to advanced tech to serve results. With the search giant's increased use of machine learning and sophisticated artificial intelligences techniques to display results, smaller travel brands in particular must understand how a subtle shift is taking place in how SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) are served. Larger travel companies, Searchmetrics argues, have an advantage as Google appears to rank them higher for content than similar items from lower-profile brands. Google is looking to understand the "real intention" behind words used by consumers, in a bid to make results more relevant, says Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics CTO and founder. "With the help of user signals, such as how often certain results are clicked and how long people spend there, the search engine gets a sense of how well searchers' questions are answered; allowing it to continually refine and improve relevance. "A searcher who types'things to remember for my beach holiday' into the search box is most likely looking for a short list for example; someone who types'height Mont Blanc' wants a single piece of information, while a query like'nice beach mallorca' is most likely wanting a series of images and a'how to pack a suitcase' query might be best served with video content." Interestingly, word count on content is beginning to become a determininh factor of the placement of sites in search results. This, according to Searchmetrics, is due to top performing results generally more detailed, cover more aspects of a topic (destination, for example). The number of keywords, however, is no longer as important as previously thought of, Tober argues. "Google is no longer just trying to reward pages that use more matching keywords with higher rankings; it is trying to interpret the search intention and boosting the content that is most relevant to the query." Finally, backlinks are also becoming less important to achieve a high ranking in SERPS. It remains a "strong correlation", Tober says, but things have changed, not least because mobile searches are now so popular and, generally, pages are more often than not "shared" or "liked", rather than linked to. "Google's application of machine learning to evaluate search queries and web content means that the factors it uses to determine search rankings are changing all the time.

Google's use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to better understand search intention and deliver the most relevant results is resulting in just that, according to new research from SEO and content performance platform Searchmetrics in its annual study of Google ranking factors. According to Searchmetrics, not only are search results more relevant than ever, many simplistic techniques to artificially inflate page rank ‒ like collecting backlinks and increasing the number of times keywords are mentioned in text – are becoming less effective. Backlinks are also becoming less important because of the rise of mobile search queries because pages viewed on mobile devices are often liked or shared but seldom linked to, Searchmetrics added. Searchmetrics analyzed the top 20 search results for 10,000 keywords on Google.com. The goal was to identify the key factors that high-ranking pages have in common.

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.

Getting your site to rank in Google can be a tough slog. It requires knowledge of current ranking factors, as well as the time and ability to optimize your content for those factors. Any SEO hacks or "secrets" you can figure out can also go a long toward helping you. While Google doesn't generally let us in on high-level SEO secrets, there are some strategies we know – both from the research and from Google themselves – about ways to boost rankings. This is your chance to join them.