What Is A Knowledge Graph?
A knowledge graph, also known as a semantic graph or semantic network, represents a network of real-world entities, such as objects, events, situations, or concepts. This graph is also used to illustrate the relationship between each entity.
There are varying use cases of a knowledge graph. Generally, it enables you to search for things, people, or places on search engines—from landmarks, buildings, and geographical features, to celebrities, sports teams, movies, and works of art.
Upon hitting enter, the knowledge graph works to instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search.
There are a number of big knowledge graphs accessible to the public, with the Google Knowledge Graph being the most popular. Unlike other knowledge graphs, Google’s semantic network isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia, and the CIA World Factbook. It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—because Google is focused on comprehensive breadth and depth. In fact, it currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about the relationships of different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for.
How A Knowledge Graph Works
Knowledge graphs are typically made up of datasets from various sources. The datasets are then processed and categorized into schemas, identities, and context work to provide structure.
Schemas serve as the framework of every knowledge graph.
Identities are designed to classify the underlying nodes of information appropriately.
Context is used to determine the setting in which a piece of certain information exists.
Together, these three components help distinguish words with multiple meanings. For instance, a knowledge graph can help search engines determine the difference between Apple (the tech brand) and apple (the fruit).
In some cases, knowledge graphs also utilize the use of natural language processing (NLP) to construct a comprehensive view of nodes and labels that will later help in identifying individual objects and understanding the relationship between each entity. This process is called semantic enrichment.
How Can A Knowledge Graph Enhance Online Searches?
Apart from showing you the results relevant to your search (and identifying the differences between words with multiple meanings), knowledge graphs can help enhance your online search experience in other ways, including:
Giving The Best Summary
With the Knowledge Graph, Google can better understand natural language, allowing it to give more detailed results for searches. For example, if you’re looking for Marie Curie, you’ll see when she was born and died, but you’ll also get details on her education, familial relationship, achievements, and scientific discoveries.
Easily Expand On Topics
A knowledge graph can help you make some unexpected discoveries during your search. When you search “White Walkers,” for example, Google will also show you tidbits about the story behind Game of Thrones’ supernatural threat and how many white walkers (approximately) there are in the books or series.
Use Cases of Knowledge Graphs
As previously mentioned, there are a number of consumer-facing knowledge graphs, with Google Knowledge Graph being the biggest. There is also DBPedia, which is made up of data from the infoboxes of Wikipedia; and Wikidata, which is made up of secondary and tertiary objects. Both knowledge graphs are published in an RDF format.
Knowledge graphs are used in a wide range of industries, including:
- Retail – where knowledge graphs recommend products based on a person’s individual purchase behavior and the popular purchasing trend across a certain demographic group
- Entertainment – in recent years, knowledge graphs have been leveraged for artificial intelligence based (AI-based) recommendations. Some content platforms that use AI include Netflix and social media
Leveraging Knowledge Graphs
Getting your brand and your products on Google’s Knowledge Graph can help you skyrocket your sales and improve the awareness around your business. To do so, you first need to become an authority on your subject by writing excellent content, doing proper keyword research, and optimizing your website.
Next, you should use structured data to mark up your website’s important elements. Doing so helps Google understand what your website is all about.
Finally, register your website with Google Search Console and Google My Business.
