Did you know that most of the search algorithms Google launches work across all languages? There are exceptions, like when Panda first launched and the product reviews update and some others. Some launch first in some languages, like the English language, and some launch globally in all languages – like Penguin.
As you know, the recent product reviews update is currently English only. Some of Google’s AI algorithms like MUM and others launch in English first. Eventually Google will expand them to other languages like it did for BERT and other algorithms.
This is a topic we covered in 2014 but it remains true today. John Mueller of Google said this on Twitter the other day “the answer is mostly yes, but also no” when asked if Google’s algorithms work the same for all languages?
John explained that “understanding text is hard, and sometimes we start somewhere (a language) first.: He added “also, some languages/countries have different availability of rich results types.”
He even gave an example he recently spotted, here are those tweets:
Another fun one that I recently ran across was how basic sorting algorithms (which we use a lot too) vary across languages & scripts. How do you sort words in Persian? For example, apparently in Japanese (I hope someone can correct me), it’s not trivial to sort proper nouns.
— ❄️ John ❄️ (@JohnMu) December 23, 2021
He also said that while the Google Product Reviews update is English only (he actually forgot if it was global or English only – it is currently English only) that it will likely be rolled out in other languages in the future. Glenn linked to that part in his tweet:
Via the latest hangout w/@johnmu: Reminder, the Product Reviews Update impacted English language pages globally, but not other languages *yet*. As John explained, it would make sense for G to roll this out to other languages over time (but no ETA though): https://t.co/bQT6jeLFkf pic.twitter.com/y7554z9fz9
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 26, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.
