What is the Google Knowledge Graph?

The Google Knowledge Graph is a web of information used by Google to improve the quality of its search results. This knowledge base compiles information from across the internet and links it together so that relevant information can be provided whenever possible. The info ends up in the side bar or ‘Knowledge Panel’ that you see offsetting your search results.

At its core, the Google Knowledge Graph is what’s known as a ‘graph database’. This is an interconnected map of data in which associated datapoints are linked semantically—branching off in all directions, connecting to many other datapoints.

Why is this helpful? It provides context to the data that is vital to understanding its meaning. Take Amazon for example. Is this the commercial giant selling cheap goods or the most diverse rainforest on the planet?

Amazon – hasTreeCover – 2.3 million square miles

(of course, under the covers this information has to be machine readable)

Without context, the word itself is meaningless. As examples become more and more complicated the web of connected data shines.

Put simply, it turns data into knowledge.