Rank brain is an artificially intelligent machine learning search intelligence program. Confusing? Well that is the point of it. Let us break down the entire sentence to understand the whole thing. Let us talk about Machine Learning first.
Machine learning is a process in which the computer teaches itself how to do something than requiring a human programmer to instruct it. Today, when we are closing to mimicking neurons and human behavior, Machine learning is a normal phenomenon in the technological world. This would mean that if I were to query a search engine “How old are the Himalayas?” It wouldn’t take long for it to learn that this is a question and the word old invokes its intelligence to get the best result.
Artificial Intelligence is where a computer behaves as smart as a human being in the sense of acquiring knowledge both from being taught and from building on what it knows and making new connections. True or Real AI however is a matter of science fiction today but pretty soon it is going to be the driving force of technology. In practice, AI is used to refer to computer systems that are designed to learn and make connections.
Rank Brain is a part of Google’s search algorithm, not a new search mechanism itself. This means that searching still goes on the way Google used to do it but certain specific queries are handled by the Rank Brain Algorithm.
Going deeper into the technicality Google uses something called Signals in order to determine a page rank. These signals may be many in number but it is confirmed that Rank Brain is officially one of the signals now. These signals determine the overall score of a result and then its viability resulting from particular keywords. Although to most of the researches it is still seeming to be a refinement, it has been categorized as a signal.
Though the existence of the new algorithm is confirmed yet it has not been confirmed yet as to what exactly does it do. Various sources have stated that it is is mainly used as a way to interpret the searches that people submit to find pages that might not have the exact words that were searched for.
If you are confused about how this algorithm works and what specifics does it look into, then it is a logical confusion because Google has still not clarified the details of this algorithm but the effects are already reflecting on search results and as time passes by probably, there will be clarity on the algorithm’s technical working.