SEO is one of the most fast-paced industries out there; constantly kept on our toes, it’s one of the reasons we love it so much. But thinking about what the future holds for the industry can be both exciting and a little frightening. Will artificial intelligence (AI) ultimately make search better or worse? Is the future SERPless? And what are the ramifications for SEOs? Plenty of questions and speculation abound.
In this article, we take a look at just a few of the key themes that come up when considering the future of search.
Artificial intelligence
Right now, AI seems to be all people can talk about, and it’s not going anywhere. In fact, it’s anticipated that AI will have a significant impact on all things marketing.
RankBrain
We have already been experiencing the effects of AI in search[1] for some time, since Google released its RankBrain algorithm. In short, the aim of RankBrain is to help search engines acknowledge the context of the query, better understanding what the user actually wants and not just processing each individual word of the query. This is particularly important given the rise of voice search, which uses more natural language.
Data dreaming
AI is inherently linked with big data; it’s the data that enables AI to function and for machine learning to transform the way we search. Humans are only capable of processing a limited amount of data, which is where AI comes in –to do things that humans can’t, or are inherently bad at doing. This is where AI in search is heading, gradually replacing and improving on tasks that humans cannot complete (or at least complete to a high quality). We are looking to use