What is Semantic Search?: The Future of Search and How It Is Impacting The World

Semantic search is an intuitive technology which deals very effectively with the words that you type into the search box. Instead of looking at the keywords, it looks at your intent behind the keywords (even if you didn't type them at all), why you want to know more about that topic and what the ideal results are for you.

As well as search, you may notice biographies of people appeaing on the right side of the page, or descriptions of places. These techniques are also part of semantic search and are beginning to answer questions that the user may have.

If you are signed into your Google account, it uses your personality and interests to see what kind of person you are and then matches this with results. It is no longer a "one size fits all" technology but one that deals with the individual and their personality.

Semantic search is a huge leap into the era of complete modernism, and affects billions of searchers every day. This hub will focus on how semantic search is changing the face of search forever, its impacts and benefits plus extra tools you may find interesting. For some time travel into the future of technology and Google, let's go!

By just taking a look at the title above, many would think that semantic search is a new way to search which is in development and ready to be implemented. However, Google have already been doing so behind our backs. They are shifting from the "keywords and ranking" approach to giving the user a more intelligent response. If you search a query today, you are more than likely going to be taking advantage of semantic search in many ways. It is there in front of us, we use it everyday, but do we know what it really is?

By definition, what is semantic search? According to Wikipedia, semantic search is:

"Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable dataspace,"

Semantic search receives the keywords that you type, let's say into Google and knows exactly what your intent behind those keywords were even though you didn't type them. It does not use its solid, computational methods to find the answer you are looking for but rather, gives you answers like a human would. It does not focus entirely on Page Rank or mathematical methods to find its results, but uses techniques such as:

• Graphs - Finding relationships and patterns behind words and using synonyms to replace them.
• Fuzzy Logic - In mathematics, a question or query can only be "true" or "false". This is also true for computer science, which makes use of many mathematical concepts. However, in fuzzy logic, an answer can be "in-between|" or on the fence. It does not deal with the extremes of 1 and 0, but with the knowledge that it already has to simulate a partial or truthful answer.

These techniques combine to give semantic search but obviously, a lot of mathematical and programming concepts convey and bring about semantic search. But the general principles of semantic search are in the list above.

Search engines no longer want to use their algorithms to deliver the searcher their results, they want engines that can act like humans to deliver them. They find out why the searcher wants to research the topic, what their intent was and what their keywords mean. They do this by getting to know the searcher. They do this through checking browsing history, social media channels and so on. Whilst this may sound a little intrusive, it is part and parcel of today's technology which brings us only the best.

Semantic search is similar to mind reading, the code knows which results appeal to you more and which ones give the most informative answers. It is intuitive...and almost human.

Semantic is a Greek word meaning "knowledge" and it relates to the study of meaning. This definition can be seen in "Wolfram Alpha", a semantic search engine. It classifies itself as a computational knowledge engine. Instead of giving us links related to the answer, it gives us the answer itself.

Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin dreamed of creating a supercomputer similar to the one in Star Trek which answers any question you ask it. Ten years ago, this was a near fantasy because their search engine only found the relevant links that contained those keywords or question that people searched for.

However, with time, they began to experiment with semantic search ideas and began to create the "Knowledge Graph", a graph that contains all the world's data and websites which are categorised under different nodes. It was released in 2012. Did you ever see the mini biography of a famous person beside the search results? That is the knowledge graph in action.

The "Related People" box, is achieved by seeing that those two names are somewhat connected on the Knowledge Graph, whether they are married or appear on the same TV Show.

With Google's latest algorithm change, "Hummingbird", they have implemented semantic search to its greatest by using the Knowledge Graph to its full potential.

A Dream In Reality?

During an I/O Conference in May 2013, Amit Singhal, representing Google as senior vice president had a famous talk in which he addressed how he wanted Google to become similar to the computer in Star Trek (he was a great fan of Star Trek) where you could ask it any question and an accurate and informational answer would be given. This is Google's goal, to create a supercomputer that can calculate and answer just about anything. This dream is no loner sci-fi but we need a lot of work to get there. Larry Page stated that he did not want people to be stuck searching for things on Google, "It should just happen".

The theory sounds good and all, but seeing it in action is a lot more satisfying. Currently, Google are impacting search through:

• Knowledge Graph - This is the brain of semantic search and is the object that is controlling the whole process. People, places and objects become "things, not strings", which was famously quoted on the Google Blog. They are no longer inanimate words which the bots don't recognise but actual objects that the bots know about. Before, if you typed in "Paris" or "Oprah Winfrey", you would have been given an entire list of results, probably containing a Wikipedia entry. Now, at least half the screen is taken up by Google's biography/description of the person or place. The algorithms are able to recognise that, "Hey! Paris is a place, so the user will want to know about the city, Paris, not the word spelled P-a-r-i-s." This kind of intelligence is vital to reaching a search engine that recognises just about anything, and no longer thinks of it as a w-o-r-d or as coders like to call it, a s-t-r-I-n-g.

• Answering The Query For You - There is no need to go trawling through question and answer websites such as Ask.com when you can get the answer in Google's results! Google now answers questions you may have, such as "What time is it?" , "latitude of New York" or "Stephen Hawking age". If you try this for yourself, you will see the answer appear on a little tile on the top of the results.

• Providing Tools - Google now provide all kinds of everyday tools that we all need in their search results. Try searching "calculator" and there you go, a calculator appears! It is easy to use and doesn't require you to waste time looking for one on your computer! Other tools include stock price checkers, currency converters and imperial to metric converters (mass, distance and speed).

I have found these tools to be extremely handy especially if I don't have a calculator handy to do the formulas for changing km to miles and so forth. Many people don't know about this feature and it is all thanks to semantic search!

Semantic search is being implemented more and more each year. Before long, we will see semantic search across all search engines and it will become at its most dominant. It is the future and we need to know how to fully take advantage as searchers and any of us who are content creators or bloggers. The semantic web is changing and we need to know the next generation of how to make an impact on the web, whether its creating a Facebook page, writing articles online or starting your own business. The question is - how?

Google are shifting to semantic search through many new SEO techniques, in other words, their ranking algorithms. How they determine where to rank websites and articles is changing. There are two main factors that are getting rid of spam websites with keyword-rich content and replacing them with real authors who are passionate about what they do and want to make a change. Currently this is done through:

"The Big One" - Social Media

Google want people and people need Google. If any author wants to impact online, they need as much Google traffic as they can get. Unfortunately, link-building and keyword stuffing just won't cut it anymore. Google's algorithms are getting so sophisticated that you will just get penalised and end up wishing you never did anything.

Search engines are sick and tired of people who can appear with a name on one website, disappear and pop up again the next week with another name. To get rid of these, Google have put a bigger emphasis on social media and tied it in with semantic search. The social media that every content creator needs is Google+.

Google want to verify that you are a real person, with a real passion for writing, painting, developing apps, or whatever your business is. To verify who you are and how much you can be trusted with your content, Google want to reward you. By joining Google+ and verifying your Authorship, you will receive plenty benefits.

You are showing Google that you are the perfect author with many circles on Google+, you have good quality content and you have pages which generated comments and shares. Google will reward you by ranking you much higher than anyone else.

This ties in with semantic search because it allows Google to see what kind of a person you are, who you are following on Google+ and what you search for. If someone comes along and does a search who may be similar to you, they will match these results and put you on the first page. Google is becoming a network of people, not necessarily pages.

As well as your usual answers, you can ask WolframAlpha some very strange and funny questions. They can even include philosophical and deep questions. WolframAlpha will come up with some crazy answers! WolframAlpha has a slight tendency to be humorous at times.

• Where am I?
• Who are you?
• What am I?
• What is a human?
• How many atoms in the universe?
• What's cooler than being cool?
• What's the meaning of life?
• Why?

Google are not the only ones jumping on the semantic bandwagon - in fact, in comparison to other semantic search engines, they contain very little semantic technology at all. Seeing tools and a few questions answered for us in the search results covers only 20% of the page, the other 80%? The content creators and website owners are still depended on for those familiar eight links. Whilst Google is going semantic, there are many out there who are 100% semantic through and through.

They are known as 'knowledge computational engines' and can answer any question you ask them, guaranteed. These include WolframAlpha, Evi and perhaps, Siri (we've all had a lot of fun with her, I think).

The engine I am going to focus on is WolframAlpha, because it receives an incredible 3,000,000 hits a day, has a beautiful design and is the most functional. Created by Wolfram, in 2000, it had one intention, to answer any question you had without Google's solution, 'the links on a page answer' but by computing the answer itself. To fulfil this task is a huge feat because it gives the code enough intelligence to actually "think" of an answer rather than looking for pages with the same keywords on the web.

WolframAlpha can compute anything from the amount of stars in the sky to the amount of days you lived if you are 38 years old. It can translate words, even phrases from Latin to Japanese. It will give the meaning and history of your first name or a funny joke you want to hear about. It also can retrieve information from other sources, as part of the semantic web. This means that it can pull website traffic numbers from reputed websites such as Alexa and add this fact to a page about a certain website such as Facebook, HubPages or CNN.

It is the perfect semantic search engine which can compute just about anything. To see for yourself, head over to their website WolframAlpha, and type in a question you are dying to know the answer to. The results will surprise you!

What will semantic search be like in 100 years? It is difficult to say because on one hand, technology could accelerate so much in 100 years that we will have a seamless transition from a want to a necessity - a supercomputer that can calculate anything and know who we are.

Or, we could become stuck in a rut and be faced by an obstacle that we cannot overcome. But in this era with so much worldwide collaboration, anything can be achieved. I think that in 100 years, semantic search will be part of our lives so much that we don't even realize its there any more.

So is semantic search finally here? Are we fully embracing its infinite power? To answer this question, let's take a look at a scenario.

Kate is coming home from her office job in New York and is waiting for the subway to get her home. She wants to meet her friend in a coffee shop and stop for a bite to eat. She types into Google on her smartphone, "coffee shops" and gets some results. She finds out that there is a coffee shop only 400 metres away and has many excellent reviews. On her search results, she finds out that there are about 10 coffee shops within a 5 mile radius of her.

What actually happened? She did not even type "in New York" as part of her search so how did her smartphone recognise it? By the end of this hub, I hope you have learned the power of semantic search. Through doing so, her smartphone recognised her location, understood the meaning of the words "coffee shops" and searched for actual places which were near her location, perhaps related to her social connections on Google+ (maybe her friends gave a +1 to one of the coffee shops) and had excellent reviews. It then crystallized the results by including a map of all the possible areas, directions to her chosen coffee shop and maybe even a coffee shop with her favourite mocha blend (she may have searched for mocha recipes regularly on Google).

Her task was fulfilled and Google found this out through semantic search. This isn't going to end either, we should expect a lot more of semantic technology in the years to come.

What do you think of semantic search? Is it the future? I always appreciate comments and look forward to reading each and every one of them.

If semantic search continues to improve at its current pace, technology may have its golden era.