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Google’s Natural Language Search Gets Smarter

Google is now smarter at understanding queries that include superlatives and times, as well as more complicated questions.

Barry Schwartz on November 16, 2015 at 1:37 pm

Google is saying their search engine is getting better at understanding our natural language searches by specifically better handling superlatives, times and more complicated questions.

Satyajeet Salgar, Google Product Manager, said Google is better at understanding your queries in three ways.

Superlatives

Google now understands superlatives, such as “tallest,” “largest” and so on, as well as ordered items. So you can ask the Google app the following questions:

Who are the tallest Mavericks players?
What are the largest cities in Texas?
What are the largest cities in Iowa by area?

Time-Based Queries:

Google is better at understanding the time you mention in your query, for example:

What was the population of Singapore in 1965?
What songs did Taylor Swift record in 2014?
What was the Royals roster in 2013?

More Complicated Queries:

Google is also better at understanding more complex combinations. So Google can now respond to questions like:

What are some of Seth Gabel’s father-in-law’s movies?
What was the US population when Bernie Sanders was born?
Who was the US President when the Angels won the World Series?

Here is a graphic Google shared explaining some of the progression.

How the Google app understands complex questions

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.