Google in October 2020 announced to roll out a system, i.e., Passage Indexing, under which ranking of specific passages from the web page in the search will be made possible. On 10 February 2021, the new system, now known as Google Passage Ranking, has gone live for queries in the US in the English language. If someone experienced a change in their rankings, this is because of the new system introduction. As per Google, it can impact 7% of the search queries.

What exactly is Passage Ranking?

Under Passage ranking, Google will use specific passages of web pages for ranking. This will make it possible for the users to get the specific searches that are otherwise becoming difficult to find. This is because many a time, the search the user is looking for specific search gets hidden deep in the web page.

With this Passage Ranking, Google will not only index web pages but also rank individual passages. This will now improve the search queries as With Google Passage Ranking; Google can now understand individual passages within the page.

Difference between Passage Ranking and Indexing

When Google introduced the system, they called it Passage Indexing, but this created a lot of confusion as people thought that Google would be indexing the passages of web pages rather than the entire web page. To clear the confusion around the new system, Google renamed it to Google Passage Ranking, which enables Google to rank a webpage depending upon the component of that page.

The Implications of the new system

The new system is believed to be proven to significantly impact the search queries when it will be launched finally across the globe in all languages. Also, there is nothing for the SEOs to worry or stress about due to the new system as it is more about Google’s understanding of the content, so they do not have to make any changes to their content.