Gary Illyes from Google responded to a question around if brand based queries can hold any influence around search rankings. In short, he said it is a hard question to answer for a number of reasons.
The question was "do "Brand" based queries and/or clicks via the SERPs hold any influence with Google scoring pages for the SERPs (be it authority, trust, ranking etc.)?"
Gary responded "This is an insanely hard question for Twitter. If you search for [tinfoil hat Amazon], the intent is clear for you, but if it's a new site, for algorithms ain't. Rankbrain, for example, uses historical data to build that confidence, but we have tons of signals that can help."
If you break down the response posted on Twitter you will see that here, Google does admit to understanding that when you add Amazon to your query that you want Amazon.com results. But if you have a new e-commerce site that Google has not learned yet, adding that new brand name won't do the same as it does for Amazon.
He said RankBrain uses historical data for understanding queries over time in a better way. But there are other algorithms and signals that do similar things.
Here are those tweets:
This is an insanely hard question for Twitter. If you search for [tinfoil hat Amazon], the intent is clear for you, but if it's a new site, for algorithms ain't. Rankbrain, for example, uses historical data to build that confidence, but we have tons of signals that can help.
— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (@methode) June 9, 2020
If only Gary had a podcast or something he could talk more about this topic on...
Forum discussion at Twitter.
