Google MUM: What Is It, Will Google MUM kill SEO?

Google introduced Google MUM at its I/O 2021 Conference. It stands for Multitask Unified Model. With this, Google aims to make search engines more powerful as BERT did in the past. Will Google MUM kill SEO for us? Let us find out as we take a deeper dive into Google MUM and SEOs becoming obsolete. 

What is Google MUM?

The idea behind Google MUM is to create a unified structure that can take into consideration user’s intent when searching. Then shift their focus to a search engine result that matches what they are looking for. Google MUM allows users to see the results of many websites on the same search query. 

It will be quite easy for users to simply look for a name of a celebrity or a product and then visit the website that matches their intent. However, this will require Google to get more intelligent. Also, it requires its competitors to change the algorithm and this might affect the user experience. What does Google MUM mean for SEO? Well, Google MUM changes the keywords and the phrases that make up a search query.

How does Google MUM work?

Google MUM has a humanlike format that makes search engines capable of not only understanding. But also recognizing not just single words, but also the synonyms of the words. This will make sure that the search engine makes more sense and can handle complex queries. 

It will also help users to identify patterns and use them to better their SEO strategies. Google MUM is nothing but a hierarchical language model that identifies words and meanings associated with them. It works across hundreds of millions of documents and learning algorithms are based on these. Just to give you an example, what happens when you search Google for “automobile” and then in your Gmail, you type “Cadillac”?

Future of Google MUM for SEO

MUM is a technology that combines multiple texts and visual search signals into one search algorithm. It is trained for around 75 languages. By this, the search engine becomes capable of analyzing user intent and implementing context to more precisely understand and respond to the user. Let’s assume that Google will soon become capable of combining features such as a natural language query, “Can my hair grow as long as XYZ?” Then it would show up vivid features such as images of the actor, and interpretations of the hairstyle. 

Based on the research, it is believed that MUM technology may achieve the functionality of 80% of BERT in the next 12 to 18 months. Google MUM features the following in its sleeves. With this one can say, Will Google MUM kill SEO? Maybe. But talking about search engines here, Google MUM can be used for:

1. Interactive Search: With this, one can do search queries with voice, scan through search results with a gesture, and pull up maps with a flick. Google MUM, as of now, can search through interactive commands and websites. 
2. Predictive Search: With predictive search, it is possible to search for keywords in context.

How it changes the way SEO works?

Have you ever thought about how Google manages your search results? It is all about hidden resources. It is not a secret anymore as Google has admitted it in their I/O 2021 Conference. MUM is a much different way to search. This means Google can juggle multiple search results at once. 

They can do this by categorizing your website and presenting it as one result. In simple terms, Google will treat your website as one BERT for search engines. With Google MUM, you will no longer have to work hard on your keywords.

Will Google MUM kill SEO?

Google MUM is said to be an advanced search algorithm. This leads to believe that it will be an interesting thing for search engine users and for search engines too. BERT has been the standard in Google SERPs. MUM has similar functions, only faster and more powerful. 

It helps in taking a complete user experience into account. It contains ranking signals for the websites that are in it. There are related keyword ideas, high authority, and better indexed by Google. It has no SEO goals, so there is no link building. This does not mean that it is a hack that is based on social proof and semantic networks.

Google’s aim is to save on the resources the websites use. When you make it very easy for users to search for different keywords simultaneously, the number of keywords, their positioning, their precision will also get affected. The ranking that SEO performs will get seriously affected. The addition of Google MUM will make it even more difficult for search engines to discern what users are searching for. 

SEOs need to know the ranking that they are getting from the search engine results page (SERP) to make an appropriate response to their audience. This means that SEOs need to make an appropriate post on their website to point out the current ranking that they are getting.

Conclusion

Google is continuously evolving. So does SEO, as the world keeps evolving. Google has introduced many changes to make it faster and powerful. Some of these changes have strengthened the SEO process. Some have taken away the strength from the process.

There is nothing as powerful as Google’s search engine. As it supports such a huge number of web crawling services, the search engine’s default indexing abilities are vastly superior to that of other search engines. Thus, it plays a crucial role in the rise of online business. As of now, it is very difficult to say about will Google MUM kill SEO. Websites would have to adapt to it and then the experience would be promising for both.

The main role of a search engine is to surface the most relevant information for a searcher on a given query. When we search for a keyword, most of the time, it is to serve a particular solution to our problem. The role of a search engine is to satisfy searcher’s needs and satisfy their query. Search engine algorithms change periodically and improve the search experience of users. Google MUM is just one of such changes which hope to make the search experience even better.