The Google Knowledge Graph is a system that Google launched in May 2012 that understands facts about people, places and things and how these entities are all connected. Google Launches Knowledge Graph To Provide Answers, Not Just Links is our introductory article about the system from when it launched. The Knowledge Graph is used both behind-the-scenes to help Google improve its search relevancy and also to present Knowledge Graph boxes, at times, within its search results that provide direct answers. Below are recent stories about the system.

Google Glass Diary, Part 3: How Search Works On Google Glass

May 20, 2013 at 2:17pm ET by Matt McGee

There are seven voice commands built in to this first "Explorers" edition of Google Glass. Two of those six are search-related: "google..." and "get directions to...." The others are "take a photo," "record a video," "send a message to," "make a call to" and "start a Hangout with." There's also the predictive search aspects of Google Now, where the device automatically shows me the kind of information Google thinks I'm looking for. So, the chances are pretty strong that a good amount of Google Glass activity is going to involve searching. Or "googling" as Glass suggests. Yep. Even though [...]

Google Knowledge Graph Gets More Stats and 4 New Languages

May 15, 2013 at 3:32pm ET by Ginny Marvin

At Google I/O today, Amit Singhal, Google VP of Search, announced that statistics and four new languages are being added to the Google Knowledge Graph. Knowledge Graph is already supported English and eight other languages: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Korean. Now, Polish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are the latest languages to be supported in the Knowledge Graph. Here is an example of Knowledge Graph in search in Traditional Chinese. The Knowledge Graph is also going to start "anticipating your next question." As an exam [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Google: I/O | Google: Knowledge Graph

Semantic & Graph-Based Search: The Future Face Of Search

Apr 25, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Barbara Starr

In a June 2010 Semantic Web Meetup in San Diego, Peter Mika of Yahoo!'s research division gave a presentation entitled, "The future face of Search is Semantic for Facebook, Google and Yahoo!" As the title suggests, the presentation focused on the ever-growing use of semantic markup as a means for helping computers parse and understand content. The talk focused on what was then the current state of the Semantic Web, as well as upcoming formats/technologies in development and the research being done in the field of semantic search. The idea that the Semantic Web would be central to search [...]

Google Adds Non-Profit Details To Knowledge Graph

Apr 10, 2013 at 9:29am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google announced on Google+ that the Knowledge Graph now supports searches for non-profit organizations. Now, when you search for some non-profits by name on Google, Google will show on the right hand side, in the Knowledge graph box the nonprofit's financials, cause, assets, tax ID, tax code, recent Google+ posts and more. This seems to only currently work for non-profits with Google+ pages. So if you do the marketing for a non-profit, it may be wise to create a Google+ page for them. Here is an example of a search for [donors choose]: The information that is shown in the k [...]

Google Answers Who’s That Actor In That Movie In Google Play TV App

Mar 28, 2013 at 9:10am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google announced they can now tell you the name of the actors in a movie when you are unsure of the name of the actor or actress. The Google Play TV or Movies Android App specifically for U.S. based Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and higher tablet devices can give you the answer. For a person like me, where I am always a bit embarrassed when it comes to not knowing actor names or even movie names - an app like this can come in handy. This way, I can see the name of the stars in the film, what other movies they had a role in and a little bit about their history. Google will displa [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: Mobile | Top News

Topless Nude Photo Makes It Way To The Google Knowledge Graph

Mar 21, 2013 at 8:43am ET by Barry Schwartz

You would think that when you search for something in Google, and an image comes up in their knowledge graph box, that the image would be rated PG-13 or lower. Well, that is not the case when you search for Angel Tompkins (warning: topless image if you click the link). The image shown for her is from a site that appears to be a spam-blog with nude images of people. Angel Tompkins is now 70 years old, a Golden Globe nominee and American actress, who appeared in several films and television shows. She is married with two children and lives in California. I bet this is the last thing [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Knowledge Graph | Top News

Search Engines More Trusted Than Social Media For News & Information [Study]

Feb 18, 2013 at 4:01pm ET by Matt McGee

When it comes to getting general news and information, consumers worldwide put as much trust in search engines as they do in traditional media -- and more in both than they do in social media. But, the numbers don't portray any single source as highly trusted, which suggests that consumers are at least trying to vet the accuracy and trustworthiness of what they find in today's information-saturated world. The data comes from the recently released 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer, the 13th annual global survey that uses data from "informed publics" -- college-educated individuals in upper inc [...]

As Google Evolves To Satisfy User Demands, Others Are Necessarily Marginalized

Jan 21, 2013 at 5:36pm ET by Greg Sterling

While it might not get off quite as easily in Europe, Google definitely "dodged a bullet" at the FTC, which recently concluded its antitrust investigation and didn't ask the company to make any changes in the way it presents search results. That was a major disappointment to Google competitors, critics and other third party publishers, which have become alarmed by what they see as a virtual land grab by Mountain View. The now-familiar lament goes: once Google was simply a way to organize and discover information, to get people from A to B. However, over the past several years Google has bec [...]

Google Fixes Definition URLs, Makes Them Clickable Links

Jan 8, 2013 at 9:05am ET by Danny Sullivan

When Google introduced a new format last month for the definitions it sometimes shows at the top of its search results, something was missing. The source URL wasn't a clickable link. That's now been fixed. Here's an example, the definition box that Google shows for a "define speed of light" search: The URL shown under the definition previously wasn't clickable. Instead, the only way to click through to the source of the definition was to use the smaller "Source" link at the very bottom of the box. Reader Martin Panayotov pointed this out to us at the end of December. We checked [...]

Google’s Local Knowledge Graph Carousel Finds Its Way On Tablets

Dec 5, 2012 at 9:21am ET by Barry Schwartz

A few months ago, Google introduced the knowledge graph carousel feature to desktop users. Now, when you search Google on your tablet device, such as your iPad, Google make show you a carousel like feature at the top of the search results. 9to5Google spotted this claiming it works for local based queries. I was able to replicate it and here is my screen shot: The issue I had is that you cannot swipe the local results from left to right with your finger. One would expect such an experience when using the carousel feature on your tablet. In fact, searching for other search exampl [...]

Google Adds Explanations To Knowledge Graph Associations

Oct 22, 2012 at 10:18am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has added explanations in the "people also search for" section of the knowledge graph results. The explanations shows why Google added a specific person or thing in the related area under a specific knowledge graph. Google associates this with the bacon number easter egg they ran earlier this year but in a much more useful way. For example, search for [Kirsten Dunst] and you will see a "People also search for" with Tobey Maguire also showing up. When you hover your mouse over Tobey Maguire, it shows the text, "Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire both appear in Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man [...]

Google’s August & September Updates: Panda, Knowledge Graph, Page Quality & SafeSearch

Oct 4, 2012 at 1:45pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has announced details on the search algorithm and quality changes made over the past two months - August and September. In total, Google lists 65 changes over the past two months. The previous announcement covered two months as well, and was for June and July. This time the key changes include Panda updates, improved knowledge graph, page quality and ranking changes, snippet changes, freshness updates and SafeSearch changes. Here is the list of some of the changes categorized by topic: Web Ranking & Indexing LTS. [project "Other Ranking Components"] We improved our web ra [...]

Google Thinks Google UK & Preston Lodge High School Are The Same?

Oct 3, 2012 at 9:32am ET by Barry Schwartz

Go to Google and search for [google.co.uk], Google's UK home page. Google will return a knowledge graph result for Preston Lodge High School. What does Preston Lodge High School and Google UK have to do with each other? I am not sure. Searching Google for [google.com] does not return the same high school. In fact, it returns what you might expect, it returns the Google Google+ page. Why is a search for google.co.uk returning Preston Lodge High School's Wikipedia result in the Google Knowledge graph box? I cannot figure it out. Hat tip to @Nick_Boyle [...]

Google’s Knowledge Graph Gains “Carousel,” Goes Worldwide In English

Aug 8, 2012 at 1:02pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Today at the Google Search Breakfast, Amit Singhal, head of Google search, said Google is launching the Knowledge Graph worldwide for English speakers The launch seems to be rolling out slowing to all countries with English based language. The complex thing with rolling this out globally is that searching for [chiefs] in the States should return a very different knowledge graph than searching for the same thing in the United Kingdom. As Danny lived blogged: It’s hard to make predictions because the same word can mean different things. Cookies in the US are called biscuits in India, an [...]

For Olympic Medal Count Info, Yahoo Gets Gold, Google Silver & Bing Bronze

Jul 30, 2012 at 12:46am ET by Danny Sullivan

Want to know the how various countries are doing in the London 2012 Olympics? For finding out using a major search engine, I give the gold to Yahoo, with Google narrowly missing to earn silver and Bing getting bronze mainly by virtue of being third in a three contestant race. Ready, Set, Search! Checking for results today on my phone, I was pretty impressed with Google's Knowledge Graph box that came up at the top of my results, showing the medals won by various countries. Kazakhstan was ranked seventh? Cool to discover! Plus, I was able to quickly learn this was for winning gold in road c [...]

Confirmed: Google’s Expandable Knowledge Graph Test

Jul 25, 2012 at 8:46am ET by Barry Schwartz

Alex Chitu reports Google is testing a new feature for the Google Knowledge Graph. The new feature is a way to show an expanded version of the knowledge graph in the top of the search results. Currently, when you search in Google and the knowledge graph comes up, it shows you up to five related people, books, albums, movies and so on. If you want more, you are out of luck. But with this test, Google is adding an "explore more" more link that gives you a lot more related topics to scroll through right at the top of the page. Here is a picture: As you can see, you can use the arr [...]

Google’s Knowledge Graph Has An Error 20% Of The Time

Jun 27, 2012 at 3:49pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google's knowledge graph which launched a little over a month ago is reportedly often wrong. Conductor ran a study showing that for trending terms, the knowledge Google is providing via their knowledge graph is wrong about 20% of the time. By trending, Conductor looked at the top 50 ‘people’ in Google Trends and Google Insights and 1 out of 5 of them had outdated or wrong information. For those in the Top 50 on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list, Google is more often right, with only a 4% chance of the information being outdated. So combined, 12% of the answers in the knowledge graph a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Knowledge Graph

Chuck Norris Stars In Google’s Latest Knowledge Graph Joke

Jun 13, 2012 at 3:23am ET by Matt McGee

The legend of Chuck Norris lives on in Google's latest Knowledge Graph easter egg. Do a name search for the veteran, bad-a** actor and Google's Knowledge Graph box will include a "fact" such as "Chuck Norris counted to infinity -- twice." The joke changes with each search refresh. I'm not even going to try to figure out how many different "facts" there are, but I did see these: The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain. Chuck Norris doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square. Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door. This shouldn't [...]

Google’s Latest Easter Egg: Search For Lionel Richie

May 31, 2012 at 8:04pm ET by Matt McGee

Oh, Google, you slay me. And it might slay you, too. Go do a search for "lionel richie" (or just click here) and -- if you've been alive long enough -- you'll get a kick out of the joke that shows up in the Knowledge Graph box. That, for you youngins, is a reference to the lyrics of Richie's "Hello," one of the sappiest songs ever, and one of Richie's biggest hits, too. The video just oozes cheese, in ways that few 1980s songs could ever hope to match. We're pretty certain that Google must have more jokes built-in to its Knowledge Graph (just like Apple's Siri has numerous funny [...]

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 Knowled [...]

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