I was asked to find out if the Google Core updates and Google BERT are related at all, if they have anything to do with each other. I’ll be honest, I was surprised by the question – I mean, there relation is they are both in Google Search. But BERT is focused on understanding language and core updates are about assessing quality in ranking.
So I decided to ping Danny Sullivan, the Public Liaison for Search at Google. I asked Danny “if the last core update has anything directly to do with BERT.” Danny responded saying “No, it’s not.”
Here is the Q&A as posted on Twitter:
No, it’s not.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) December 22, 2020
So no, BERT and Core Updates are not related. They are separate beasts in the big overall Google search beast.
Forum discussion at Twitter.