Google Knowledge Graph: Smarter Search Will Identify The 'Real Things' You Are Looking For [VIDEO]
As Google rolls out more changes to their search engine, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has released the details to its latest innovation -- Knowledge Graph.
The search feature will work with its users to fully understand what they mean by their search entry, according to Mashable.
As users type in their queries, a new window will appear on the right side of the result asking which entity they mean.
For example, the term Kings could refer to royalty, a sports team or a now-cancelled TV show. Click on one of those options and your results will be filtered for that search entity.
As Mashable reported earlier this year, Google is in the process of switching from simple keyword recognition to the identification of entities, nodes and relationships.
To the average person, all this means is that New York is not simply the combination of two keywords that can be recognized, but rather a state in the U.S. surrounded by other states, the Atlantic Ocean and with a whole bunch of other, relevant attributes, as Google Search understands it.
In order to execute the upgrade, Google is tapping in to all of its resources, including Freebase, which it acquired in 2010, Wikipedia, Google Local, Google Maps and Google Shopping.
The Google Knowledge Graph currently contains 500 million people, places and things that have at least 3.5 billion attributes, according to Mashable.
This update will have a greater initial impact than the updates that brought Google Images, videos, news and books combined. It's big and it's probably going to be everywhere, Mashable writes.
In addition to the window feature, Google's Knowledge Graph will present summaries for results which will be obtained by taking advantage of several different databases.
For example, a search for Thomas Edison will return a brief summary, images of his famous inventions and perhaps, most interestingly, related things.
Google Fellow Ben Gomes said the search results are tailored to deliver information that best relates to the initial search result.
So the details delivered about a female astronaut will likely outline her space travel record, because that's what people who search for her are, according to Google, most interested in, Gomes told Mashable.
Classified as a Knowledge Graph, the system organizes the results in a way that helps its users dig more deeply into related topics.
In order to get a basic feel for the new system, Google showed Mashable how someone might start by searching for a local amusement park, find an interesting roller coaster as one of the things that relates to the park and end up digging in on details about that roller coaster and similar rides.
Gomes describes the Knowledge Graph as a skeleton of knowledge that allows you to explore information on the web.
The Google fellow went on to tell Mashable about the new search system's potential for discovery, suggesting that the more you dig into things, the more things you learn about.
While it might be hard to believe that the new Google Search contains some flaws, the Knowledge Graph is said to include an error reporting system.
When users find misinformation, Google will share it with the source and the Knowledge Graph will get just a little bit smarter by making a note of it.
For now, though, the Knowledge Graph is not getting any smarter.
According to Gomes, If you search for an ambiguous topic and then guide Google Search to the more defined set of results, the same query later will not go directly to that filtered information - at least not yet.
It is unclear how the Google Knowledge Graph, which pushes aside keyword results in favor of relationships and artificial intelligence, will affect search engine optimization.
Despite the uncertainties, Gomes assures Mashable that eventually, Google's search will get smarter and will stop asking for your help to understand your query and start answering complex questions like What is the coldest lake in the world in July?
It doesn't matter why you want to know that, just that, someday, the right answer will be a click away on Google Search, Mashable wrote.
Google's Knowledge Graph is expected to roll out across the U.S. (and on all Google platforms: desktop, mobile, tablet) in a matter of days, with eventual plans to go global.
Introducing the Knowledge Graph
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