Google Knowledge Graph is Here! 5 Key Things You Need to Know

This week, Google announced the rollout of Knowledge Graph, a significant change to how search results are delivered. Google believes Knowledge Graph is the first critical step toward making its search results “more human” because of the new way the search engine has started to view relationships between people, places, and objects.

The mantra “things, not strings” describes this new relationship:

Take a query like [taj mahal]. For more than four decades, search has essentially been about matching keywords to queries. To a search engine the words [taj mahal] have been just that—two words.

But we all know that [taj mahal] has a much richer meaning. You might think of one of the world’s most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician, or possibly even a casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Or, depending on when you last ate, the nearest Indian restaurant. It’s why we’ve been working on an intelligent model—in geek-speak, a “graph”—that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.

To summarize Google Knowledge Graph and what it means for you as a Google user as well as from an SEO standpoint, we’ve put together this list of five key things you need to know about it:

1. Your search results just got a makeover.

To see the Knowledge Graph in action, you can perform a sample search like “Baltimore” and look at the newly populated area along the right hand side of the screen. As you can see, Google now provides a summary of the city with a map and key facts, a set “Points of Interest” sub results, and an additional “See results about..” search suggestion in case you meant Baltimore, Ohio versus Baltimore, Maryland. Google will present a similarly-constructed Knowledge Graph for a vast number of search queries related to its new database of people, places and things.

(Note — The Knowledge Graph only seems to appear when you are logged in to Google!)

(Click the image to see it larger.)

2. Google has A LOT of data in its Knowledge Graph.

Google’s Knowledge Graph database currently contains 500 million objects and more than 3.5 billion facts about the relationship between those objects. The information in this database is fine-tuned based on the search behavior of the millions of Google users. All of the above is in addition to what Google pulls from public information sources like Freebase and Wikipedia to feed its knowledge engine.

3. Serendipitous new features help you make unexpected discoveries.

One of the new things you’ll notice for many of your queries is the “People also search for…” feature, which presents an array of similar keyword topics or closely related subjects. For example, searching for “Grateful Dead” results in the following set of results for other bands that Grateful Dead fans tend to enjoy:

4. Google Knowledge Graph is mobile, too!

Google has also begun rolling out Knowledge Graph to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, making it even easier for users to get the information they need while on the go. Here’s a shot of the mobile Knowledge Graph in action:

5. SEO is still important!

With every major Google change, marketers and website owners (predictably) worry about the impact it will have on search engine optimization (SEO). While it’s still too early to tell what exactly Knowledge Graph means for SEO, most early speculation points toward Knowledge Graph being a change that mostly affects the users, not the search marketing industry. In other words, good SEO practices and search marketing strategies are still important for maintaining visibility and positioning within Google results. In fact, the addition of Knowledge Graph into the mix—which utilizes databases, user search habits, the influence of social results, and other forms of relational data–means strengthening your efforts to ensure you’re making the most of these new opportunities.

Got questions? Ask the Google Experts

Do you have questions about Google Knowledge Graph and how it affects your search marketing strategies? Don’t get left behind as we enter the next generation of search—contact the Web Ad.vantage SEO experts today. Call us at (410) 942-0488 or submit an RFP.

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