Google has evolved, as if it were a Pokémon, to offer us more complex, specific and sophisticated results, all through greater presence of artificial intelligence. Google Mum has arrived to stay, will it change SEO as much as we think?
I'm Asier López, SEO Manager at Elevam and in this article I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about Google Mum and what awaits SEO experts after this update.
What is the Google Mum SEO algorithm?
Mum is a new technology and its acronym refers to "Multitask Unified Model".
Google MUM will help Google users find answers to questions that are cataloged as "very difficult" to answer for various reasons.
The main goal of Google MUM is to resolve doubts to complex questions, which cannot receive a short and direct answer, like the frequently asked questions Google already offers today.
In this way, finding information about a topic becomes simpler, since it will collect through images and texts all the information you're looking for; moreover, it will do so in several languages, so it's a completely complete information.
We need an average of 8 searches to resolve a doubt through search engines, an unequivocal sign that they were falling behind; Google Mum aims to handle this type of queries as if it were an expert in the subject.
Google Mum is born with this purpose, that of shortening search times, offering complete information that doesn't need to go to more searches to complement that information.
When was Google Mum announced?
Mum seo (Google MUM) was presented in 2021 during the Google I/O event, and was presented as an artificial intelligence superior to the Bert neural network. In fact, they confirmed it was about 1,000 times more powerful than the neural network.
Google Mum is still in Beta phase in some of its functions, so it's early to see it in operation. What seems likely is that the artificial intelligence will be launched in our year, 2022.
Its role with respect to previous algorithms promises to be revolutionary, since it will be an expert algorithm made for experts. What does this mean? Well, if you have an online company and you're not very expert in SEO, you'd better hire someone specialized in Google Mum.
What is Google Mum for?
After reviewing what Google Mum consists of and what it aims to solve (or complicate), it's time to talk about its functionalities, which are not few. First we'll enumerate them and then we'll go into development:
- It solves complex tasks.
- It understands all types of information.
- It knows more languages than C-3PO.
Google Mum solves complex tasks
Google Mum works with the main objective of transforming the way a user receives the information they wish to discover through highly complex questions. For this, it has learned to handle 75 languages and is capable of performing multiple tasks simultaneously (hence the multitask thing).
For now it collects and understands all the information in text and image, but it's not ruled out, and in fact, it wouldn't be surprising, that Google Mum will end up including audio and video in answers to users.
In this way, if you were to ask Google Mum for example, what's better, Barcelona or London, it could launch answers on topics as diverse as the weather and climate, whether a city is coastal and another mountainous, being able to understand that you're trying to look for beach and hiking destinations, and provide you with the necessary information to prepare yourself in any case.
Google Mum and its ability to understand all kinds of information
Images, web pages and much more. In fact, it's said that in the future you'll be able to take photos of objects in your home and Google Mum will be able to advise you. Following the previous example, if you took some photos of your cangrejeras (sandals), Google Mum will probably be able to advise you that this footwear is not the best to go to London, but it is to Barcelona, or at least to its beaches.
If any blog or website that's an expert in footwear talks about this, Google Mum would refer you to the place where you can resolve your doubts about footwear for London.
For Google Mum language is not a problem
By being able to recognize about 75 languages, there are no barriers, since it'll be able to show you information in other languages that resolve your doubts and with Google Translator you'll be able to read it in your language.
This is good if for example you need very specific information, like for example, the customs of a town in Morocco; you'll possibly find more information in Moroccan than in Spanish. Isn't this great?
Google Mum and SEO: how does this affect experts and agencies?
I don't think this means the end of SEO; as long as there are search engines there will be SEO. That said, it's undeniable that Google Mum will affect SEO, especially in the field of semantics.
If you've used the technique of paraphrasing articles in other languages, Google Mum will penalize you at the SEO level, since the fact that it knows so many languages means your content can be seen with greater reach in other parts of the world, but for that you need to have original content.
The content marketing strategy will undergo a change, that's for sure. But the creation of original and interesting content will be something that will last for quite some time. In the end, Google Mum's goal is to improve user experience, and if you learn to create that content the algorithm likes, you'll continue to be in the breach; this trade is one of constant learning.
That said, competition will be much greater, since Google will be able to include in search terms podcasts, videos, images and texts that will compete with websites and blogs, making everything a greater competition.
Although it's still incredible that if you have a podcast that talks about footwear, it can be detected by Google and shown in search engines.
Does Google Mum affect keywords?
The search for elements by voice is increasingly common; we already have Alexa and Siri in many of our homes. So this will probably be the direction in which this artificial intelligence advances.
How does Google Mum affect keywords? Being, in a few words, the best virtual assistant created so far, it will be able to extract data from multiple sites, so keywords will take second place, without disappearing, at least for now.
My conclusion
We're at the beginning of a new era, and beyond dying, I think SEO is neither created nor destroyed, it's transformed.
Until artificial intelligences are superior to human intellect (something we've seen in Terminator doesn't end well), there will always be a need for the figure of an expert who is capable of having online projects climb to the first positions.
The question is: are you already preparing for Google Mum?
Related reading
- How to index your website in Google
- Ranking in Google: technique, content and authority
- Best SEO agency: real criteria
Shall we work together?
If you want to apply this in your company with a team that combines technical SEO, GEO and paid acquisition measured against the income statement, request a no-commitment audit. You can also check real case studies or read the public GEO baselines that Elevam Labs publishes every quarter.
