Implications of Google' Knowledge Graph For Search and SEO

In 2012, Google came up with an algorithm update called Google Knowledge Graph. It demonstrates the search engine’s commitment to offer the best and the most user-friendly search experience on earth. This is only one of the updates that Google has hurled at webmasters. If you feel it is too much for you to handle all challenges that Google throws at you, contact any India SEO Company; they hire professionals who are apt at handling all the challenges regarding search engine optimization or SEO.

Coming back to our topic, we shall discuss the impact of Google’s Knowledge Graph on the rank of a company in the SERPs or search engine result pages.

What is Knowledge Graph and how does it work?

According to Google, Knowledge Graph is meant to help searchers view factual summaries of their search string, which includes, biographies of notable personalities, brands, movies, places, books, geographical features, sports team, celestial bodies, etc.

Its purpose is to help searchers find the exact thing that they are looking for, gives them the best summary and motivates them to go deeper in order to discover more about the search. The update is available to all users, provided they make the search in English.

Google’s motive behind Knowledge Graph was to make search more intelligent. The results are now more relevant because Google now understands these entities and the nuances in their meaning better, or in the way a user does. This means, the search engine now ‘thinks’ in the same way as a user does.

Knowledge Graph’s Impact on Google

According to an announcement made by Matt Cutts in August 2012, at SES San Francisco, Google is looking beyond just being a search engine and focusing on being a knowledge engine. The search engine is so committed to this that it has renamed its Search Quality Team as Google Knowledge Team.

The search engine giant has worked hard and is continuing to do so even now, in its endeavour of creating a vast database of structured knowledge that enhances the features. Presently, the database of Knowledge Graph has more than 500 million people, things, places, etc. And what’s even better is that it indexes over 3.5 billion connections and attributes between these items. This data can be accessed by the Google algorithms and you!

The search engine has also indexed structured data that is found in the form of microformats and schemas on sites, which it shares with the webmasters in Google Webmaster Tools. Given such new dimensions that has been added to the search engine, every good India SEO Company is bound to put in that extra effort to frame strategies for retaining and improving search visibility for their clients’ sites.

Knowledge Graph’s Impact on SEO

The Knowledge Graph has also paved its way to new approaches toward Search Engine Optimization.

Semantic search, which involves artificial intelligence, understands the intent of the searchers. Hence, it is not just about the web, but data, information and applications. Such a search world cannot exist without a strong foundation of data, which may be meaningless in itself, but becomes significant when connected with the various sets of data available on the internet. So, when a user enters a search string, these inter-connections add context, making the associated information more relevant and powerful.

Content is definitely the key for getting better rank, but simply adding content for the sake of it does not serve the purpose. The content that you add has to be connected, correlated and shared through the authority accounts on the internet, like on social media sites, in order to make itself valuable in front of users. This ultimately, helps the website gain authority.

Moreover, if the content is added in a structure, then the chances of its showing up in the Knowledge Graph, increases. Content that is expressed as microdata gets easily correlated to data vocabulary it is giving information about, thus, making it easy for Google to find connectivity and relevance.

Google supports only a handful of microdata types, which includes, people, reviews, products, recipes businesses and organizations, events, video and music. If your site includes any content regarding the mentioned niches, it is eligible for the implementation of microdata, which will surely strengthen your search presence.

In the new search era that we are living in, webmasters do not need to focus on keywords but on the relevance of quality content, which can correlate to searches, as the semantic web makes search more intelligent rather than simply mapping words during the process of search.

The relevance can be derived from the context of the text, terms and terminology of the content used in the URL, headings, title, inbound links, anchor text, schema codes, alt text used on images, microformats, meta tags and the body text.

Focusing on the relevance factor and trying to correlate to a wide range of keyword data rather than focusing on the keywords alone in the titles, URLs and descriptions, make it pass on to the next layer of the emerging web, thus, making the pages pass on more relevance and correlation and also synchronizes the on-page signals with the ones on off-page, which gets directly indexed in the search engines as sitemaps and feeds.

XML, RDF and Schema content comprise the second, third and fourth layers. The content that is mostly seen is the format of RSS feeds and sitemaps, which are in contact details and XML, reviews, videos, events, etc., now are being represented more in the format of RDF.

Metrics that Need Attention

Given the current scenario in which quality, relevant content is under focus, you need to focus on metrics like content keywords, number of impressions, search queries, landing pages and CTR or Click Through Rate.

To wrap it up, it can be said that it all begins with quality content that is shareable and is referred by other sites, which adds to its relevance and connectivity. An efficient India SEO company can produce such content. Thus, working with them can ensure you valuable resource that Google won’t be able to ignore.