Google Says Knowledge Graph Has Led To More Searches

May 30, 2012 at 8:02am ET by Matt McGee

Searches are up in the two weeks since Google launched Knowledge Graph, its database of facts that adds context to a variety of search results.

Although the company didn’t share specific numbers, Google Fellow Amit Singhal told the Wall Street Journal that “people are interacting with it [the Knowledge Graph] more” and “doing more [search] queries.” Those comments were made Friday, and Google spokesperson Jason Friedenfelds told the WSJ on Tuesday that internal stats show that users are still “doing more searches as a result” of Knowledge Graph.

That makes perfect sense since the Knowledge Graph is designed not only to help provide context and answer search questions, but also to encourage users to do more Google searches. Consider the Knowledge Graph box that appears on a search for Peter Carl Fabergé, the subject of a special Google doodle today, where the image is a Google image search link, all ten text links near the image lead to new Google searches, and there are five more search links in the “People also search for” section. Only the light gray “Wikipedia” text is a link that leads away from Google.

google-knowledge-graph

So, really, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that the Knowledge Graph would create more Google searches.

Singhal also tells the WSJ that more search activity means Google is sending more traffic to other websites. A Wikipedia spokesperson is quoted in the article as supporting Google’s use of Wikipedia content in the Knowledge Graph, but didn’t have any data to indicate if Google has sent more traffic over the past two weeks.

More Google searches also means more chances for search ads to show. Singhal didn’t share any statistics about ad performance with the WSJ since Knowledge Graph launched (and as the head of Google’s search quality team, that’s not his job to know), but he did say that Google is “experimenting” with how to display search results that have “numerous ads” as well as a Knowledge Graph box.

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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http://twitter.com/faust6 Nauman Lodhi

rightly said more people will search and keep on searching within Google and there will be more ad impressions right on the google search pages. But Google must be thinking to create value for the users and make their searching more simpler, smarter and faster than before. so its interesting to see how things unfold in the coming months.
http://twitter.com/incrediblehelp Jaan Kanellis

Lead to more searches is a good or bad thing? Maybe people are simply not finding what they are looking for when the knowledge graph results appear?
http://rustyryan.net/ RJ Ryan

Nit: the image is not a search link. It takes you to the landing page the image was taken from.
Matt McGee

The image begins with

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=

which is a Google image search link. The landing page displays in the background, but you’re looking at a Google URL.