Google Explains the Difference Between Neural Matching and RankBrain

Google addressed some questions going around the SEO community as of late related to neural matching and how it’s used in search.Danny Sullivan, via Google’s Search Liaison account, published a series of tweets explaining the difference between neural matching and RankBrain.Here is an overview of what was shared by Sullivan. Neural matching helps Google better relate words to searches. It’s an AI-based system that has been in use since 2018. In September 2018, Google stated that neural matching is used in 30% of searches.It’s not known how widely used neural matching is right now, though it would be reasonable to assume its use has only expanded. Sullivan’s description of neural matching closely resembles what my colleague Roger Montti wrote about it last year: What is Google’s Neural Matching Algorithm?