I have heard a LOT of people talk about RankBrain, Machine Learning & A.I. inside of Google’s algorithms, and I have already spoken a bit about this in my SEO In 2018 video.
However, I still had people asking a lot of questions by what I mean on this and still see people backing up Google’s propaganda – When realistically, they don’t even understand A.I. or machine learning in the first place, and by the way.. They’re 2 very different things.
Table of Contents
Yes, Google Does Run Machine Learning
Google’s RankBrain algorithm is real and it does run inside Google’s SERPs.. but the amount of SERPs it runs on is completely unknown, and when you look at pricing models to run machine learning instances on Google’s own platform, they run at a cost of upwards of $10/hour. PER Instance.
For Google to theoretically apply this to even just the top million most searched for queries would require massive amounts of processing power on high end systems – With little actual benefit to Google’s bottom line.
Running machine learning, and especially A.I. on such a vast data set like the indexable internet.. Would cost a company billions of dollars just in hardware costs right now.
Obviously, this will change in the future as processing power gets quicker and breakthroughs in the technology & software behind it all blossom. That being said, I’d give it another 5 – 10 years before we see it actually implemented in a mass commercial environment.
Google Even Says It Only Analyzes Content
Google’s own staff have been quoted with saying that RankBrain only has the capacity to analyze pieces of content –
If you read that, suddenly doesn’t seem massively impressive anymore, does it?
It is impressive.. From a current, technological standpoint.. but people also think we’re significantly more ahead than we actually are. You guys give too much credit in Google’s ability to stop actual people – Skynet isn’t here yet, and won’t be for a while.
A.I. & Machine Learning Are 2 Different Things
Actual artificial intelligence is when a computer can think like a human and truly learn for itself.. This is being tested with things like Google DeepMind, but it can still only master tasks you can input into a computer. Like games and knowledge..
And even then, it’s still in it’s infancy and costs a ridicolous amount for even the smallest of tasks.. Like playing a computer game vs. one other person. They still haven’t been able to make an A.I. that can play as an entire team, yet.
Machine learning is purely about connections, and being able to build them on it’s own, rather than input match-ups by humans.
No, Comparing Bing & Yahoo Doesn’t Prove A.I.
Just because Google’s algo is better at understanding user intent, doesn’t mean that comparing Yahoo & Bing to Google’s searches somehow proves how sentient Google’s algo really is.
Google owns about 51,000 different patents – Including a f*ck ton in search engine technology. In respect, Yahoo owns under 2,200, total.
That means the amount of patent technology that Google is using, that Bing & Yahoo can’t use.. Is huge. They can use any number of non-A.I. related technologies to locate results, and they do offer a lot better results because of that.
Thanks For Reading
I know this was only a short post, and you probably aren’t used to seeing these kinda things from me!
I do have a reason though.. I’m working on 2 new projects and both are taking up a huge amount of my writing time. Don’t worry, both will be out in February.
I hope you enjoyed it anyway, let me know your thoughts on the RankBrain debate in the comment section below.
