Google's Amit Singhal Introduces Knowledge Graph

[engine]

Google's Amit Singhal Introduces Knowledge Graph [googleblog.blogspot.co.uk]

Search is a lot about discovery—the basic human need to learn and broaden your horizons. But searching still requires a lot of hard work by you, the user. So today I’m really excited to launch the Knowledge Graph, which will help you discover new information quickly and easily.

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

We’ve begun to gradually roll out this view of the Knowledge Graph to U.S. English users.

[Marshall]

Why do I get the feeling this is going to hurt.

Marshall

[deadsea]

In other words, Google has heard all of our complaints about Wikipedia being on top of the SERPs for so many queries.

Now instead of having to go to Wikipedia to get results, you can see what you are looking for right on the search results page.

[Rugles]

I just got a CNN breaking news alert about Google changing search(ya, seems a little weird that a new Google product qualifies for breaking news).

Is this what they are talking about?

[Chrispcritters]

Yup, Google wants to BE the internet rather than gateway TO the internet.

The could be VERY bad for many websites with informational content.

[nomis5]

So, the top half and more of the SERPS is now split, half dedicated to information that has nothing to do with websites.

The Homer Simpson example confirms what is already happenning - more room for Google to sell Homer Simpson books, records dvds etc.

Nothing surprising really, they are trying to turn a bigger profit as most companies do. But where does this leave companies like Amazon? IMO it's an outright and very blatant attack against them.

From a very personal point of view, I trust Amazon and enjoy the service they offer. More and more nowadays if I want to buy something I type "thingiwantobuy Amazon" into Google. I'm beginning to wonder what in heavens name leads me to do that. Why don't I just go to Amazon and type in "thingiwantobuy"? I've no idea.

[chalkywhite]

So, what google are saying is

"we will scrape thousands of sites, claim the information as our own and then show it to you, so you never have leave google.we may even chuck a few ads in for good measure"

[creative craig]

The already high walls on Googles garden just got taller... and a little creepier!

[Leosghost]

<meta name="google" content="noscrape" />

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google - Your 'knowledge graph' is essentially 'scraped content we're going to showcase in our index ahead of results' so at least have the decency to call it as such.

edit:

<meta name="google" content="noscrape" />

Leosghost - EXACTLY! (if you're in the knowledge graphs current and likely expanding sights)

Amit has seemingly very officially sounded the war horn vs the very publishers who made Google's rankings a viable business model.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 6:47 pm (utc) on May 16, 2012]

[Gibble]

More and more nowadays if I want to buy something I type "thingiwantobuy Amazon" into Google. I'm beginning to wonder what in heavens name leads me to do that. Why don't I just go to Amazon and type in "thingiwantobuy"? I've no idea.

I do it too, mainly because Google's search is better.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

More and more nowadays if I want to buy something I type "thingiwantobuy Amazon" into Google

I do it too, mainly because Google's search is better.

Really? I have both Matt Kemp and Jacoby Ellsbury on the disabled list in my Yahoo fantasy baseball league and so I wanted a replacement outfielder just now. I typed in "Fantasy Baseball Rankings" and "Fantasy Baseball Rankings Yahoo" and both give me March 2011 results which are useless to me instead of the current 2012 rankings list.

I switched engines and Bing got it right first try so their "freshness algo" must be performing better? This is happening FAR more often now than I've ever seen and I can only go by what I see(example provided above).

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 7:31 pm (utc) on May 16, 2012]

[londrum]

google is a bit like a cuckoo. we have to do all the hard work and feed it for free, while they slowly devour all our traffic.

[Leosghost]

Quote from Google's meta tags page
[support.google.com...]

Other points to note:
Google can read both HTML and XHTML-style meta tags, regardless of the code used on the page.
With the exception of verify, case is generally not important in meta tags.

This is not an exclusive list of available meta tags, and you should feel free to use unlisted meta tags if they are important to your site. Just remember that Google will ignore meta tags it doesn't know.

Well as soon as they have indexed this thread..(doesn't usually take them long to index WebmasterWorld threads ) they won't be able to say that they don't know the "noscrape" tag ..

I did just search it to check ..and at this time they don't yet "know it"..they said there were no results ..didn't stop them serving me an ad for a "data scraper" though..so they know what it means..

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Essentially, yes. I don't like it, not one bit. It gives webmasters a clear conflict of interest when dealing with this ranking company.

Leosghost - care to begin the process of making a Google NoScrape meta tag an accepted cross browser meta tag? The "knowledge Graph" dictates it will be required to avoid being scraped.

[netmeg]

I do it too, mainly because Google's search is better.

Really?

I could be wrong, but I got the impression he meant that Google's search was better than Amazon's. Which it is, because Amazon's search is pretty awful.

[Leosghost]

I'll be placing it ( <meta name="google" content="noscrape" /> ) into my sites, beginning later this evening..( right after dinner :-)..going to be a busy holiday weekend :)

In France May 16 and May 21 are public holidays..

[johnhh]

But searching still requires a lot of hard work by you, the user.

because Google messed up ...

_{reminder to self - do not post when sober}

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

As a webmaster if you read nothing else in that article read this...

We’re proud of our first baby step—the Knowledge Graph—which will enable us to make search more intelligent

Bolding mine. You'll want to adjust your business model to include Google displaying a mashup of your content instead of sending you traffic and, eventually, not needing you at all for most major searches. The change from ally to competitor is underway.

I could be wrong, but I got the impression he meant that Google's search was better than Amazon's. Which it is, because Amazon's search is pretty awful.

I know, I was just pointing out that it's not always true. The Yahoo example I provided being one such case.

[rlange]

I didn't know where Matt Groening got the names for most of the Simpson family, so that was interesting. Still, that's probably information I could have gleaned from Wikipedia if I had ever actually done a search for [Matt Groening], so... I don't know...

Also, in the case of [taj mahal], I'm a bit unclear on the benefit of having options to narrow the search down presented in the sidebar. If a user were looking for, say, the musician but didn't realize that the structure was going to take up a significant part of the results, how difficult is it, really, for them to refine their search with [musician taj mahal]? While it could be nice to see a list of essentially unrelated entities that match your general query, it just seems like query refinement for that particular example.

Rugles wrote:
Is this what they are talking about?

Yeah, and, as usual, the media goes overboard. This isn't so much of a change to search right now as it is a compliment to Google's current results.

Sgt_Kickaxe wrote:
Leosghost - care to begin the process of making a Google NoScrape meta tag an accepted cross browser meta tag? The "knowledge Graph" dictates it will be required to avoid being scraped.

Please tell me you two don't actually believe this is how this sort of thing works. We're rarely the ones who define "acceptable" meta tags. Just because a relatively small percentage of websites choose to use your home-grown meta tag doesn't mean Google is obliged to recognize it.

--
Ryan

[edited by: rlange at 8:06 pm (utc) on May 16, 2012]

[chalkywhite]

The plan is pretty obvious now, they stopped showing us keywords is GA.
"Build great content for users not search engines" - so we do. Then phase 2 kicks in they take this great content and use it.They put a system in place ( panda/penguin) so that if we attempt a fightback we are struck.

Genius

[Panthro]

I thought this was already talked about in that Mashable interview?

[tedster]

This is certainly a significant change. Here's our earlier discussion about it from the pre-announcement back in February: Google's Amit Singhal Interview: Developing The Knowledge Graph [webmasterworld.com]

While I appreciate the concerns, I also know that human beings in general don't do well with change - at least not right away - and yet change is absolutely inevitable and even required for anything that expects to continue and not vanish.

I think there is probably opportunity here for webmasters - every change is like that. The old ways are threatened, but the sharp folks grab the new ways quickly and succeed. I may not be the very sharpest, but as I get a handle on some of the opportunities here, I'll share the ideas and successes.

[MrSavage]

From a unbiased view, Google is better when they just show the info on their page. This move has been evident. IP addresses, sports scores. No need to leave Google and they are attempting to provide the answers on their pages if they can. It all makes sense really. I could find out the NHL playoffs scores in one click. No silly video ads from ESPN to bother me. Bad for ESPN I suppose but better for me the Google user. In fact I would be that if Google can do this right, their search will become even more of a market leader. The ground they lost to Bing might just come back. Results in one click? That's not bad really.

I'm okay with this because in the past six months my expectations of the future have changed drastically. Think about that movie Total Recall. There was a point in the movie where the air supply gets cut off. People were slumped over on the streets gasping for air. I think of that as the trend of Google organic traffic.

I'm a peace with it because corporations have no conscious. Everything starts out pure. The execs change, philosophies change etc. An example will be Wikipedia putting ads on their site. Not going to happen? Yeah right.

[londrum]

what opportunity is there? the information in the sidebar seems to be unattributed (judging by the screenshots in the blog). the blue links just appear to lead to new searches.

okay, in the old days, people used to get info like "height of the eiffel tower" from the snippets in the SERPs. but at least there was the chance of a click there. If google starts printing the answers above the fold, outside the SERPs, then the chance of a click is pretty much zero

[edited by: londrum at 8:03 pm (utc) on May 16, 2012]

[johnhh]

@londrum go through to [insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk ] click the screenshots - mostly Wikipedia , which also appear first in the shown SERPS - a deal been done ?

[chalkywhite]

@johnhh Good spot, the description is the same as the wiki snippet.

[londrum]

oh yeah, i see now. the snippets are all labelled with wikipedia. i cant see an actual link to wikipedia though (other than what appears in the normal SERPs). i still cant see where the blue links go though. they look like they might lead to other search pages to me

[LostOne]

If many of you depend on this kind of information to make a living from your websites, Google is doing the same as you. Example of Taj Mahal. Where did your information come from? It certainly could not have been original or unique, unless you found an obscure fact such as how many toilets are in the Taj Mahal. At first glance of this thread I thought it could open up a nasty battleground. Now I like it but I rarely use Google these days.

It sure does weed out the regurgitated sites or shoves them out of view. Now...how do they expect to squeeze in the social stuff that Bing is doing. Their SERPS will be a real train wreck.

[diberry]

I don't think Google has officially declared war on the webmasters that made them great. I think it's more that Google has always been our competitor, so of course they're doing what's best for themselves with no consideration for us.

That said, tedster is right - there are opportunities. While the KG may thrill kids looking to copy Wikipedia for a school essay and hope the teacher doesn't notice, and it'll be nice for looking up ball scores and other hard data, that's not all people use the web for. Many people use search for in-depth research, and I don't just mean nerds - you should see ordinary people trying to decide which thing to buy. They want a multitude of reviews to get a consensus, not just Google's digest of what the top site had to say. Many people use it to extend their social network by finding forums and blogs where they can chat with like-minded people. I don't see the KG serving those needs so well.

This move will probably do Google some good, and will probably really hurt anyone (other than Wikipedia and similar) currently relying on Google for traffic. But I think it might drive people to other ways of discovering new websites, so the opportunities will lie with whatever venues this pushes people to explore.