Google just got better at reading. Time to stop writing for robots.

Two weeks ago Google rolled out an update it calls BERT, which it describes as the biggest change to search in five years. Strip away the jargon and it comes to this: Google now reads a search the way a person would, including the small words — "to", "for", "without" — that change what a sentence means. "Parking near Schiphol without a reservation" is no longer treated as "parking Schiphol reservation".

For anyone who writes a business website, this is good news, and it retires a decade of bad habits.

What stops working

• Keyword stuffing. "Amsterdam garage, garage Amsterdam, car repair Amsterdam garage" in the footer. It never read well, and now it does not even work.
• Pages written for a phrase instead of a person. Ten near-identical pages for ten neighbourhoods, each saying nothing. Google can tell they say nothing.
• Headlines that are search terms. "Best Web Design Agency Amsterdam" as an H1 is a sentence no human would say. It reads as what it is.

What starts working

• Answering the question. If people search "can I get an APK inspection on Saturday", the page that says "Yes — Saturday inspections, book below" wins over the page that lists "APK Amsterdam" fifteen times.
• Natural sentences. Write the way you would explain it to a customer at the counter. Google is now closer to that customer than to a keyword counter.
• Specifics. Prices, times, areas, what is included, what is not. Specific pages answer specific searches; vague pages answer nothing.
• Headings as questions. "How long does a rewire take?" followed by an honest paragraph is exactly the shape of thing the new Google likes — because it is the shape of the thing people type.

Our rule, unchanged

We have written client sites this way for years, mostly because it converts better: people who find a page that answers their question tend to call. It is nice when the search engine catches up with the customer.

If your site was written for the old Google, the fix is not technical. It is a rewrite in plain language, page by page, starting with the ones people actually land on. We do those. Bring your customers' most common questions; that is the content plan.