What Is the Google Knowledge Graph & How Does It Work?

What Is Google’s Knowledge Graph?

The Google Knowledge Graph is an enormous database of information. It enables Google to provide immediate and factual answers to search queries about real-world topics.

These topics—also known as entities—may be people, organizations, places, events, things, animals, foods, abstract notions, concepts, etc.

If you’ve ever googled something and received a useful answer without having to make another click, you likely have Google’s Knowledge Graph to thank.

Let’s take a look at Google’s search result for the query “J. R. R. Tolkien”:

This search doesn’t provide just standard search results with links to other websites. Instead, it shows a summary of the basic information about the author, his books, and other relevant media.

All of this is part of Google’s Knowledge Graph.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at how Google’s Knowledge Graph works, how it impacts SEO, and what it means to optimize your website for the Knowledge Graph.

How Does Google’s Knowledge Graph Work?

Google introduced the Knowledge Graph in 2012, with the slogan “things, not strings.”

Google’s goal is to understand the meaning behind “real-world entities and their relationships to one another.” As opposed to just showing results based on the strings of words used in the search query.

Here’s Google’s introductory video explaining the Knowledge Graph (in less than three minutes):

Google’s Knowledge Graph contains two basic types of data:

1. Entities: Real-world...