Google’s newest algorithmic update, BERT, helps Google understand natural language better, particularly in conversational search.
When creating city pages in local, it’s often difficult to write “Keyword City” naturally. In this test, we check if we can trigger the BERT algorithm and which format is better.
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This is test 372 - Can City in keyword outrank City keyword. So SEO in Seattle versus SEO Seattle, which one of those will work. And then test 373 actually is the inverse. So this one is the page that’s optimized for keyword City and then the other one was optimized for keyword in City. And then they checked the different search results. So what the test was looking for was that see if BERT, the new update is affecting content.
In particularly local because you're talking about how BERT is doing a lot of changes to local. Ted and I surmise that BERT actually didn't change local search results at all. I know what it did is it optimized the algorithm or the math and allowed Google to determine what you're talking about inside of the search or to help determine what you're talking about.
So use natural language stuff to figure out the purpose of your query so that it would result in more accurate search listings. It did not however actually go into your content and see if you match the thing. So if BERT says you wanted X, it doesn't read your site and make sure it says X before it puts you in search results. It just gives a different set of results because it's supposedly understanding your search intent better.
So this is actually going into the local because a lot of people were surmising that if you added keyword in City that you would actually rank better now because BURT understood what you're talking about and you didn't necessarily have to optimize for keyword City.
Then what we looked in here is this one - again these pages were optimized - a keyword in City. In the search keyword in City, they actually ranked number one and then if you did keyword without the in, the rank came down there at number five on the test pages. I think it's probably farther because there's some stuff hidden in here. But it ranked all the away down at the bottom, which is not the result that we, as SEOs, are looking for. So obviously, in this example, you wouldn't want to add the optimization for “in”.
But if you go to Test 373 and scroll down here at the bottom, this is the page that’s optimized for keyword City in the search results. Keyword in City the page, keyword city is number two. So that's a good result. And then number one here.
So if you're looking at which one is better should I do keyword City or keyword in City… right now stick with keyword City. Obviously it's a little bit harder for that to make sense when you're typing in country and stuff but just it's just the way it is. The joy of local. You could think that maybe the search volume is a little bit different. I would test that actually with the Adwords campaign. This the keyword in verses this. See which way people are actually searching more.
You may find that in your particular market they like to use the in versus not so then it would be worthwhile to implement the in inside of your optimization. And probably make it a little bit easier on yourself versus solely just going with keyword City like everyone does.
But as you can see here, when you do that, you actually capture both those and I'm sure you can probably bust this up with some backlinking using that as the anchor text and lock that into the number one position. Then you'd be all set. But that's out of the scope of the test, just something to consider for sure.