Knowledge Graph

The Knowledge Graph is a vast knowledge base created by Google that gathers information not about individual keywords but about entities — specific people, places, organizations, works or concepts — and the relationships between them. Launched in 2012, it let the search engine move from matching strings of characters to understanding things and how they relate. It is the foundation of Google's semantic approach to search.

How the Knowledge Graph works

The graph represents the world as a network of entities connected by relationships. Each entity has attributes, and the graph's edges describe the links — for example, that a given person founded a particular company, and that company is headquartered in a certain city. The data comes from trusted sources:

• structured databases such as Wikidata and Wikipedia;
• structured data embedded on pages by webmasters;
• verified profiles of businesses and public registries.

Thanks to these connections, Google can answer complex queries and grasp context — it knows that asking about the "CEO" of a given brand refers to a specific person-entity, not just any occurrence of that word.

Practical application

The most visible effect of the graph is the Knowledge Panel — the card that appears beside or above the results summarizing information about an entity: a photo, a description, contact details, links to profiles. The graph also powers featured snippets, suggestions and "people also ask" relations.

For an SEO strategy this means shifting emphasis from phrases to building a recognizable brand entity. That is aided by implementing structured data with the schema.org vocabulary, consistent company information across the web and presence in trusted, structured sources. A strong, unambiguous entity increases the chances of earning your own knowledge panel and better brand visibility.