There's no escaping it: It looks and acts a lot like Google's Knowledge Graph. But Bing calls it "Snapshot" -- that middle column in between its main search results and the social sidebar on the far right. And today, Snapshot expands to begin showing facts and related information for both people and landmarks. So, on a search for famous artist Pablo Picasso, the middle column shows his image and a few facts about his life, along with related search links to get information about his family, artwork and more. Here's a look: The small print at the bottom of the Snapshot results for [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Snapshot | Search Features: Direct Answers | Top News

DuckDuckGo has added new "zero click" information from Zanran to its search results, giving users quicker access to some of the deeper web content that Zanran offers. You may remember Zanran from my profile last year, Zanran: New Search Engine That Unearths Data In Charts, Graphs & Tables -- it's essentially a search engine for data that often gets lost in PDFs, Excel documents and even images. The new integration into DuckDuckGo is about a week old, and can be seen on queries like [aircraft production brazil], [adult obesity prevalence in indiana] and [child poverty uk 2012]. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | DuckDuckGo | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Other Search Engines | Search Features: Direct Answers

The term "Semantic Search" is certainly not new. However, it has taken on a new dimension and implications in both search and social engines today. In addition, it has had a strong impact on targeted semantic advertising. This special series of forthcoming articles on semantic search will take a look at the history behind the development of semantic technology and why it has now become so commercially viable and topical. It will also take a look at how the technology enables "answer engines," rather than simple search engines, to improve the user experience. For example, look at the dire [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features | Features: General | Schema.org | Search Features: Direct Answers | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Search Features: Natural Language | Series & Special Topics

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 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: Web Search | Microsoft: Bing | Search Engines: Olympics | Search Engines: Special Events | Search Features: Direct Answers | Top News | Yahoo: Search

Bing's search results are getting a bit more interactive with the integration of machine-generated videos from Qwiki. The companies have just announced that some search results -- currently those where a Wikipedia page appears -- will offer searchers a chance to see and hear a Qwiki video about the search topic. The integration shows up as a single line below the main search result with a small "play" icon and a "Watch the Qwiki" call to action. Clicking that launches Qwiki's machine-generated video right in the search result. Various elements that appear in the video are clickabl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | Search Features: Direct Answers | Search Features: Enhanced Listings | Top News

Bing's search results are getting a bit more informational thanks to a new partnership with Encyclopedia Britannica. They're calling it "Britannica Online Encyclopedia Answers," and it adds extra information about a search result right within the search results page. As the screenshots below show, it looks quite a bit like Google's recently-launched Knowledge Graph feature, but there are some differences that I'll mention below. I've used red arrows to highlight one of the main differences with how Google presents this data and Bing's version -- Bing links out to several third-party [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Partnerships | Search Features: Direct Answers

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 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Direct Answers

Hinted at for months, Google formally launched its "Knowledge Graph" today. The new technology is being used to provide popular facts about people, places and things alongside Google's traditional results. It also allows Google to move toward a new way of searching not for pages that match query terms but for "entities" or concepts that the words describe. Knowledge Graph? "Graph" is a technical term used to describe how a set of objects are connected. Google has used a "link graph" to model how pages link to each other, in order to help determine which are popular and relevant for part [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: Web Search | Search Features: Direct Answers | Top News | Wolfram Alpha

Last November, Google tested a new "Sources" section in its search results, in the third column where ads normally appear. It seems the testing is underway again, showing extended information about actors, films, musicians, people and more. It also seems likely everyone may see this extended information soon, and that it's the "search refresh" the Wall Street Journal wrote about in March finally arriving. Experiment Confirmed I noticed these appearing yesterday in my own search results, and Google has confirmed that there's an experiment happening: We're always experimenting with ways to im [...]

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