Google’s BERT Update Is Now Available Worldwide

Remember the BERT update? Google first rolled it out for English-language searches in the U.S. in October, as we covered in our article on the BERT update. Now BERT is available on Google around the world. Here are the details.

The BERT Update: A Quick Refresher

Let’s recap. BERT is a language model that helps Google better understand searches. To do that, it takes into account small words such as prepositions (“for,” “to,” “from”) and how words relate to each other in a query. Searches are understood in context, and the results are more accurate. Google has called it one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of Search.

BERT Goes Global

BERT initially worked only for English-language searches in the U.S. Google has now announced that BERT is being used in Search in more than 70 languages.

How Does BERT Affect Search Results?

As we explained earlier, BERT affected about 1 in 10 searches in English in the U.S.

We expect a similar share for searches in the other languages, although Google hasn’t published figures for them.

“Affected” isn’t a bad thing. Quite the opposite: search results are now more accurate. In other words, Google can surface the most relevant websites. That should mean better-quality search traffic and more relevant results.

What It Means for Your Website

There’s nothing specific to “optimize” for BERT. The best approach is still to write clear, natural content that answers the questions your customers actually ask (our SEO content writing tips can help). If you want help with that, Référenceur, a French-speaking digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg, works with U.S. businesses remotely. Get a free assessment of your content, or learn more about our SEO services for U.S. businesses.

Where Things Stand in 2026

BERT’s reach kept growing: in October 2020, Google said BERT was used in almost every English-language query. It has since been joined by other AI systems in Search, such as MUM, introduced in 2021 (see what MUM means for search), and BERT-style language understanding is now a standard part of how Google interprets queries. Google lists BERT among its active systems in its guide to its ranking systems.