machine learning and search -state of search 2016

Eric Enge @stonetemple

Machine Learning, Search & SEO

Eric Enge @stonetemple

ERIC ENGE, CEOSTONE TEMPLE CONSULTING

NOTABLE SPEAKER, BOOK AUTHOR & ENTREPRENEUR 2016 US Search Awards 2016 Search Personality of the Year

2016 Landys Search Marketer of the Year

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Nationalselfrelianceassociation.com

Eric Enge – Fun Fact 1

October 2010

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Eric Enge – Fun Fact 2

ntier.org

February 2011

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Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Our Best Student!

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Simple Learning Problem

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With a Simple Solution

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Much More Complicated Problem

This is an Example of “Supervised” Machine Learning

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And, Now the Complexity

Went WAY up

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Machine Learning is a 2 Step Process

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Supervised Machine

Learning Sample Problem:

Recognizing a Face

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Related Stories Auto-Discovered by Machine Learning

Google News Uses Unsupervised Machine Learning

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DeepMind’s AlphaGo Program Beat the World Champion

10 atoms in the known universe

10 possible positions in the game of Go

100

171

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Enter RankBrain

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Bloomberg Broke the News in October

2015

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Basic Concept: Stop Words

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Query That Doesn’t Work Well With Stop

Words

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Top Organic Results for the Query “Office”

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“The” and “Office” are capitalized

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“Yeah -- being able to represent strings of text in very high-dimensional space and "see" how they relate to one another.”

Google Spokesperson’s Answer to a Question I Asked About RankBrain

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Notice Patterns in Language Usage

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Notice Patterns in Language Usage

The

• Classic stop word• But in some cases

critical to phrase meaning

• e.g. “The Office”

Graphic

• Could relate to violence

• Could relate to language

• Could relate to design

• Meaning determined by context

Without

• Negatives traditionally ignored by Google

• But in some cases critical to meaning of page

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What Does RankBrain Do?

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What Does RankBrain Do?

Can result in selecting

different algos

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Can You Get 100% Score on SuperMario Without Walkthrough?

Negatives

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Our RankBrain Study

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June/July 2015 Google Result January 2016 Google Result

Pulled Results from Google on Two Different Dates

Did This for 500K Queries

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Aggregate Results

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Why Are PDFs So Weak?

July 2015 Answer

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Now Relates “Weak” to Security

January 2016

Answer

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Where is Celtics Bench?

July 2015 Answer

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Now Applies Meaning of “Where is” Better

January 2016

Answer

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Tourist Map of Mdina Malta Pre-RankBrain – July 2015

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Example of How RankBrain Impacted Algo Selection

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Machine Learning Summary Thoughts –

What Will Such Algorithms Look For?

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Quality Content

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Ways to Measure Authority

(Links)

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Source: Chartbeat

How About Social Media as a Signal?

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No Correlation Between Shares and Links

Source: Moz and BuzzSumo

Zero (or Near Zero) Means NO

Correlation

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BUT, They Will Look for Some Form

of Social Proof

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Need to Have the Right

Training Data

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Very Hard to Test Edge Cases You Can’t Define

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Deriving and Testing Machine Learning Algorithms Takes a Long Time

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When Do We Apply Machine Learning?

When coming up with human

algorithms proves to be impossible

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How to Prepare for This?

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Machine Learning is Just a Tool in the Toolkit

It’s Not Going to Blow Up SEO as

We Know it

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Personal Assistants More Likely to Drive Disruptive Change

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What to Do? Align With the Search Engines

1. Work on Content Quality

2. Work on Your Authority

3. Increase User Satisfaction With Your Site

4. Create Demand for What You Do

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Some Practical Ideas

1. Are you working on building your

brand?

2. Do you have recognizable

experts working with you?

3. Review engagement data on major pages.

4. Check your site search.

5. Review competitor sites

for ideas.

6. Perform advanced content

comparison analysis.

7. Design your site for Smartphone

users.

8. Make your site as fast as possible.

Eric Enge @stonetemple

Eric Engeeenge@stonetemple.com

@stonetemple+Eric Enge

(508) 962-8474www.stonetemple.com

Thank You!