MUVERA: Google's new search technology and what it means for SEO

Google researchers published a paper on MUVERA, a technique for finding pages that match a search query in meaning much faster. Google has never said that MUVERA is part of its search engine. The research does show where search is heading: more and more toward meaning, with less weight on the literal keyword.

What is MUVERA?

A search system that searches by meaning turns text into strings of numbers: vectors. The simplest approach makes one vector per page, a kind of summary in numbers. Multi-vector models like ColBERT make one for each piece of text. That lets them match a search query to the content of a page much more precisely.

The catch is that this more precise matching takes a lot of computing power, which makes it hard to use at scale. MUVERA compresses all those separate vectors into a single vector of fixed length, a Fixed Dimensional Encoding (FDE). That way, a fast, existing search method can do the first round of selection. In the tests Google Research describes on its blog, MUVERA found on average 10% more of the relevant results than the multi-vector method it was compared with, with 90% less latency.

What this could mean for SEO

Cramming a keyword into your text twenty times hasn't worked for years. Techniques like MUVERA go a step further: they match the meaning of a search query to the meaning of your text. A system like that understands that someone who searches “apple beveiliging” (apple security) probably doesn't want tips on storing fruit.

Individual pieces of text become findable

Because a multi-vector model looks at individual pieces of text, a search system that works this way can pull one fitting passage out of your page, even if the rest of that page is about something else. Your whole article doesn't have to be about exactly that question.

A strong paragraph under heading number seven can be found on its own that way. So make sure every piece makes sense by itself, with a heading that says what it is about and an answer that doesn't lean on the three paragraphs before it.

What you can do right now, with or without MUVERA

1. Build topical authority

With scattered blog posts about all sorts of things, you have little to offer on any one topic. If you cover one topic from many angles, you have more pieces of text that can match a search question. You do that with topical clusters: a main page with articles around it that each explore one question in depth.

If you have an online store, put guides, comparisons and solutions to problems your customers run into next to your product pages. Together, they form a knowledge center around your products.

2. Make sure your site is fast and well built

MUVERA says nothing about loading speed. A fast, well-built site is still the foundation, though. Google looks at how fast and stable your pages load (the Core Web Vitals), and a page Google can't read properly won't be found either. A green checkmark in Yoast says little about that, because that plugin mostly judges your copy.

3. Write for your reader

“Write for people, not for search engines” is something you have probably heard many times. That advice gets more and more accurate. The better a search system understands what is written, the less SEO tricks pay off and the more it matters whether your text answers your reader's question.

4. Show that you have experience

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Google uses these concepts in the guidelines for its quality raters, and that is separate from MUVERA. A construction company that only publishes theory about roof insulation shows little experience. Photos and stories from its own projects do show it.

Is MUVERA already in Google?

Nobody outside Google knows. MUVERA was published as research from Google Research, and Google has not said whether or when it uses the technique in its search engine. The code is available as open source on GitHub, though, so developers can work with it themselves.

Should you change anything now?

Not because of MUVERA alone. What works well in SEO stays the same: answer the questions your customers ask, in copy that can also be understood in separate pieces.

If you already write for your reader and your site is fast, you don't need to overhaul anything. If you doubt whether your content is put together that way, have your SEO strategy reviewed.