Not to be out-shone by Bing's recent redesign, Google will be taking a strong step forward in the next few weeks with the release of Knowledge Graphs.
The new graph system will allow Google to offer up Bing-like data parsing, where useful facts and figures on a search topic are parsed and displayed alongside search results, however, Google's Knowledge Graphs goes a step further, storing over 3.5 billion contextual facts on over 500 million objects; users won't just receive run-of-the-mill templated information such as weather or hotel bookings, users will see facts and figures important and relevant to each search term.
For example, search for an author and, a list of their books will appear, search for Marie Curie and you'll find a list of her achievements and suggestions of other scientists of interest in similar fields of study.
As the name perhaps suggests, Knowledge Graphs will also help Google to become smarter. By being aware of the relationship between search terms and actual real-world entities, Google is now able to understand more than just key words, filtering out results that may share the same key words, though are actually referring to a different object, for example, Taj Mahal, the singer, the landmark or the Indian restaurant? This can either be identified by the user in the search bar, with Google taking note or, options to select the entity of interest will be presented after the initial search.
Microsoft has claimed that over the past year, blind surveys have revealed that users are actually happier with the results of a Bing search against those found in Google, a switch around against the prior year, likewise, Bing's step into Social Results from a multitude of sources will no doubt be enticing to some users, however, Google's Knowledge Graphs have real potential to fight back and ensure that the firm holds its search crown, offering focused results and breaking into the fact listing territory with a powerful new system, a territory that used to belong almost exclusively to Microsoft's Bing.
