We’ve been waiting for more semantic results from Google since the acquisition of Freebase. Well now it’s here!
State of Search reported on interesting types of search results starting to show in Google so we went to investigate further.
Our initial search queries were around business people, politicians and other well-known people. We also tried movie directors and actors found that the new results show greater depth and can go as far as answering key facts about life and relationship of these people. For example, a search on “Julia Roberts Movies” will bring up a list of movies she appeared in and “PUSA Band Members” will list all the members of the famous rock band. Note that “PUSA” is an acronym for “The Presidents of the United States of America” and Google got it right!
It gets even better. Search for “Author of I Robot“, or “Works of Michelangelo” to see Google truly make semantic connections. The relationships in knowledge spam across other facets including spouses, children, birth, death and age. It even gave us the exact answer for “BMW head office” and “how big is Australia” search queries (Thanks Pe lagic).
The level of certainty comes from various cross-referenced sources including wikipedia and news results. Google users are asked to confirm the validity of results, though we do not expect those to be anything more than passive feedback unlikely to alter Google’s answers in search.
Do they know everything? Google’s “answer” results are far from perfect for example, there is no direct answer to who the president of the united states is? Surely work in progress as they can tell his education pretty well. Our favourite search query though would have to be this: How old is Jesus?
One interesting item we found was a point in the March search quality updates from Google stating:
Improvements to name detection. [launch codename “edge”, project codename “NameDetector”] We’ve improved a system for detecting names, particularly for celebrity names.
The above is clearly visible in the new answer-style results.
Is this new?
Not entirely. Google had many complex and customised results in its search for a while.
Here are some examples:
- Statistics: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=GDP+of+USA
- Flights: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=flights+from+LA+to+NY
- Movies: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Battleships+movie+times
- IP Address: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=my+ip+address
- Definitions: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=what+is+onomatopoeia
- Sports People: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=maria+sharapova
What to expect in the future?
What type of search queries trigger direct answers on Google?
PEOPLE
Writers: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=author+of+i+robot
Business People: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Yahoo+CEO
Movie Directors (Double Result!): https://www.google.com.au/search?q=matrix+director
Actors: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=julia+roberts+movies
Politicians: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=prime+minister+of+australia
Musicians: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=PUSA+band+members
Artists: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=works+of+michelangelo
RELATIONSHIPS
Spouses: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=john+mccarthy+wife
Offspring: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=bill+gates+children
EVENTS / STATUS
Birth: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=nikola+tesla+born
Death: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=amy+winehouse+died
Age: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=how+old+is+larry+page
LOCATIONS
Business: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=BMW+head+office
Thank you
We would like thank these guys for helping us find cool search queries for this article:
References:
- http://www.stateofsearch.com/google-testing-or-rolling-out-semantic-results-in-the-uk/
- http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_buys_semantic_web_database_metaweb.php
- http://insidesearch.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/search-quality-highlights-50-changes.html
This is good news for us guys who have clients that seek to rank not only for 2 word KW phrases but those longtails that are less searched for but convert from prospect to paying customer much faster.