1.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Machine Learning, Search & SEO

2.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
ERIC ENGE, CEO
STONE TEMPLE CONSULTING
NOTABLE SPEAKER, BOOK
AUTHOR & ENTREPRENEUR 2016 US Search Awards 2016 Search Personality of the Year
2016 Landys Search Marketer of the Year

3.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Nationalselfrelianceassociation.com
Eric Enge – Fun Fact 1
October
2010

4.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Eric Enge – Fun Fact 2
ntier.org
February
2011

5.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Machine Learning and Deep Learning
Our Best Student!

6.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Simple
Learning
Problem

7.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
With a Simple
Solution

8.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Much More Complicated Problem
This is an Example of “Supervised” Machine Learning

9.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
And, Now the
Complexity
Went WAY up

10.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Machine Learning is a 2 Step Process

11.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Supervised
Machine
Learning Sample
Problem:
Recognizing a
Face

12.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Related Stories Auto-
Discovered by Machine
Learning
Google News Uses Unsupervised Machine Learning

13.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
DeepMind’s AlphaGo Program Beat the World Champion
10 atoms in the
known universe
10 possible
positions in the
game of Go
100
171

14.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Enter RankBrain

15.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Bloomberg
Broke the
News in
October
2015

16.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Basic Concept: Stop Words

17.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Query That Doesn’t
Work Well With Stop
Words

18.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Top Organic
Results for the
Query “Office”

19.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
“The” and “Office”
are capitalized

20.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
“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

21.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Notice Patterns in Language Usage

22.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
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

23.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
What Does RankBrain Do?

24.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
What Does RankBrain Do?
Can result in
selecting
different algos

25.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Can You Get 100% Score on Super
Mario Without Walkthrough?
Negatives

26.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Our RankBrain
Study

27.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
June/July 2015 Google Result January 2016 Google Result
Pulled Results from Google on Two Different Dates
Did This for 500K Queries

28.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
28
Aggregate Results

29.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Why Are PDFs So Weak?
July 2015
Answer

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Eric Enge @stonetemple
Now Relates “Weak” to Security
January
2016
Answer

31.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Where is Celtics Bench?
July 2015
Answer

32.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Now Applies Meaning of “Where is” Better
January
2016
Answer

33.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Tourist Map of Mdina Malta
Pre-RankBrain – July 2015

34.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Example of How RankBrain
Impacted Algo Selection

35.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Machine Learning
Summary Thoughts –
What Will Such
Algorithms Look For?

36.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Quality
Content

37.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
37
Ways to
Measure
Authority
(Links)

38.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Source: Chartbeat
How About
Social Media
as a Signal?

39.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
No Correlation Between Shares and Links
Source: Moz and BuzzSumo
Zero (or Near
Zero) Means NO
Correlation

40.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
BUT, They
Will Look for
Some Form
of Social
Proof

41.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Need to Have
the Right
Training Data

42.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Very Hard to Test Edge Cases You Can’t Define

43.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Deriving and Testing Machine Learning
Algorithms Takes a Long Time

44.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
When Do We Apply Machine Learning?
When coming up
with human
algorithms proves
to be impossible

45.
Eric Enge @stonetemple

46.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
How to Prepare for
This?

47.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Machine Learning is Just a Tool in the Toolkit
It’s Not Going to
Blow Up SEO as
We Know it

48.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Personal Assistants More Likely to Drive
Disruptive Change

49.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
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

50.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
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.

51.
Eric Enge @stonetemple
Eric Enge
eenge@stonetemple.com
@stonetemple
+Eric Enge
(508) 962-8474
www.stonetemple.com
Thank You!