A Layman’s Visual Guide To Google’s Knowledge Graph Search API
Columnist Barbara Starr delves into the recently released Knowledge Graph Search API and discusses how SEOs might use this data.
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How Trust & Unique Identification Impact Semantic Search
Is your content trustworthy, and does that matter? Columnist Barbara Starr explores how Google might be using trust as a signal when displaying search results.
Structured Data & The SERPs: What Google’s Patents Tell Us About Ranking In Universal Search
Columnist Barbara Starr delves into several Google patents to explore the ways in which the search giant is displaying search results based on structured data and context.
Understanding Question/Query Answering In Search & How It Relates To Your Website
As Google delves further into semantic search, our focus must shift from targeting keywords to answering questions. Columnist Barbara Starr shows how you can use structured data to help search engines understand your content.
Demystifying The Google Knowledge Graph
Columnist Barbara Starr explains the power of the newly extended Knowledge Graph and how to leverage semantic technology for better search visibility.
Use These Tools To See What Entities Are On A Web Page
Search engines leverage structured data to determine what entities are on your web page. They can also do this using other techniques such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. This article will introduce you to various tools that will help you identify entities on a web page. These tools include: Interesting /Chrome plugins/extensions […]
Shopper FOMO – What Is It & Are You Dealing With It Appropriately?
FOMO, or “fear of missing out,” is something that is playing an increasingly significant role in today’s digitally connected world. Wikipedia defines it as follows: Fear of missing out or FOMO is a form of social anxiety — a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, profitable investment […]
How To Use Entity Markup To Appear In The Knowledge Graph
Search engines have increasingly been incorporating elements of semantic search to improve some aspect of the search experience — for example, using schema.org markup to create enhanced displays in SERPs (as in Google’s rich snippets). Elements of semantic search are now present at almost all stages of the search process, and the Semantic Web has […]
From 10 Blue Links To Entity SERPs: Is Your Website Ready?
Search is changing and along with it the landscape of search results. SERPs are more adaptive, more engaging, more informative, more interactive and more personalized. The adoption of Semantic Search- and Semantic Web-related enhanced displays in SERPs initially appeared via Yahoo and its SearchMonkey results. This was in due course followed by Google’s Rich Snippets […]
Succeeding With Content In A Mobile World
In 2013, mobile traffic in the US almost doubled. Cyber Monday of 2013 was the year that cyber Monday went mobile. And, according to Gartner, Q2 of 2013 was the first time that sales of smartphones surpassed sales of feature phones, with the former accounting for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales worldwide. That last fact […]
How Online Retailers Can Leverage Unique Identifiers & Structured Data
Ever since the Hummingbird update, there has been a ton of Internet buzz about entity search. What is entity search? How does it work? And what exactly is an “entity”? However, the topic of entity search as it relates to e-commerce and Google Shopping has been neglected. Everything you have learned to date about entity […]
5 Ways To Unlock The Benefits Of Semantic Search
Search is changing. It is now more personal, more engaging, more interactive and more predictive. SERPs no longer display just 10 blue links — they have become more useful and more visually appealing across all device types. Semantic search is at the forefront of these changes, as evidenced most recently by the launch of Google’s […]
Google Hummingbird: When Evolutionary Becomes Revolutionary
The announcement of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm last month made quite a stir in the tech and SEO communities. In a blog post released the same day as the Hummingbird announcement, Google revealed some new features and ended the post with this: We’ll keep improving Google Search so it does a little bit more of the hard […]
10 Reasons Why Search Is In Vogue: Hot Trends In Semantic Search
Search is strongly featured in the all-important September issue of Vogue, which includes a 10-page layout of models wearing Google Glass, along with an in-depth feature on Yahoo CEO, Marissa Meyer, looking simply stunning and chic. Google Glass and the latest trends in search are now so hot that they are no longer considered geeky […]
Used To Searching For Content? Now, Content Searches For You
When it comes to search, we are accustomed to queries that are initiated client-side and not server-side. But, Google Now and similar services are altering this long-standing trend. Search, by definition, implies user-initiated actions. How is this changed by technology such as Google Now and Google’s Knowledge Graph? First, what is Google Now? Available within the […]
Leveraging Search Algorithms In A Semantic Search World
Innovation velocity in the search world is causing knowledge graphs to become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous. In light of that, it is imperative that semantic Web groups and SEO groups maintain a frequent and open communication. The SEO of the future will need to have a strong understanding of how knowledge graphs work — as well […]
Search, Answers & Knowledge Graphs Galore
Google is leveraging the knowledge graph brilliantly, while others have their own version of knowledge graph search. As the knowledge graph changes the SERPs, Google is pushing adoption of semantic technology, gradually replacing its traditional SERPs based on links. The search giant’s innovations are setting the pace for the future of search. For example, Google […]
Google’s Hunger For Structured Markup
Google is keen for structured markup — to put it mildly. In the not-too-distant past, I wrote about Google’s Data Highlighter for event data, a tool which allows webmasters to indicate structured data for events without having to actually mark up the site’s HTML code. It has the charming feature that the resultant extracted data is […]
Semantic & Graph-Based Search: The Future Face Of Search
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 […]
Facebook Graph Search: The Good, The Bad, The UGLY!
Besides covering The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, we’ll also go into The How and The What of Facebook Graph Search, which launched in January 2013. Graph Search was hardly a surprise to many of us, yet its implementation to date has been interesting. If well-understood, it can be leveraged by marketers and brands; […]
How Leveraging Data Quality In Google Shopping Can Increase Product Sales
I’m sure many of you are aware that Ad Rank in Google AdWords is derived from the price you are willing to pay (bid price) multiplied by relevance (Quality Score), along with other factors. This is an extremely profitable model for Google as the majority of its income is derived from advertising revenue. Since Google […]
Is Google Hijacking Semantic Markup/Structured Data?
In 2012, I started a series, How The Major Search And Social Engines Are Using The Semantic Web, which took us to a point in time around September 2012. Since then, there have been further interesting developments. In this article, I am going to focus on recent developments that are search engine and/or Google specific, […]
Examining Real World Uses Of Rich Snippets & Markup
Semantic markup is becoming more and more popular in conjunction with large scale SEO. Adding rich snippets to send rich signals to alert search engines as to the relevancy of your content − whatever vertical they may appear in − is not only a wise move, but an SEO best practice. Included below is an […]
For Google Shopping & More, Vertical Search Works!
A Vertical Search engine, just for clarity’s sake, is defined as a search engine that focuses on a specific segment of Web content or on a specific topic. Examples would be Google Shopping and all the other items on the Google menu bar (Images, News, Recipes, Maps, YouTube, etc.). It is also clear that some […]
An Illustrated Guide To E-Commerce Markup Using GoodRelations
In How Search & Social Engines Are Using Semantic Search, I started this series with an overview. This article will give you a walk through on generating local and organization markup for a store. We will look at an alternative vocabulary, namely GoodRelations, and take a deeper dive into the specifics of generating semantic markup […]
How Search & Social Engines Are Using Semantic Search
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 […]
Checking Out Shopping SERPs: Put Yourself In A Search Engine’s Shoes
With the advent of Google moving to a paid inclusion model, many folks must be wondering what they can do to optimize their data or product feeds to make themselves findable. Whether you are in a paid vertical or free one, Google has to serve up relevant information. So, how about putting yourself in a […]
Can Retailers Benefit From The Knowledge Graph & Schema? You Bet!
The Knowledge Graph is the latest in a series of efforts in which Google has adopted technology from the semantic web aka the “Giant Global Graph” envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. For those retailers who haven’t yet adopted schema.org microdata, Good Relations RDFa and other structured markup on their product pages, now is the time to […]
How To Leverage Structured Markup To Create E-Commerce Web Portals
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the definition of a Web portal. Wikipedia defines it as a point of access to the Web with information from diverse sources represented in a unified way. Standard Web portals are those we are all familiar with, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo; however, there are also […]