Knowledge Panels, Rich Snippets & Semantic Markup

Knowledge Panels, Rich Snippets & Semantic MarkupPresented by:Knowledge Panels: Rich Snippets and Semantic Markup

Bill SlawskiDirector of Search MarketingGo Fish Digital

Bill Slawski

seobythesea.comgofishdigital.com@bill_slawski

/bill.slawski+BillSlawski/slawski

Searchers are looking for thingsWe have conducted a manual analysis on 1,000 unique queries randomly selected from the search log of a commercial web search engine. It indicates that named entities appear very frequently in queries and about 70% of the queries contain named entities.

Named Entity Recognition in Query

Search is now about Things not StringsUnderstanding how an entity is represented in Search Results is an important task in an SEO Audit. That representation can influence whether or not a site attracts visitors, and what viewers of those search results might think about that entity.

Surfacing ThingsReview SitelinksExplore Knowledge PanelsReview Specialized SnippetsStructured Data TestingResearch Entities in KGReview Sitelinks

Structured Data Testing

Research Entitiesin KG

Review Specialized SnippetsExplore Knowledge Panels

10 Blue LinksBackRub (Googles original name) results shown in a provisional patent looked a little different than Google results they had PageRank indicators for each result

Improved Text Searching in Hypertext Systems llllllll(provisional PageRank patent)

Definitions - 2004Google explained in a patent in 2004 how to have definitions appear for your site, by creating glossary pages that contained head terms formatted with definitions, at least 5 per page. It was worth trying and it worked!

System and method for providing definitions

Definitions in Organic Search

Question Answering Appears - 2005Google tells us about their start in question-answering in early 2005, referring to these answers in Search Results as Google Q&A. Later these have become known as Featured Snippets

Just the Facts, Fast

Beware of Vertical Creep - 2005Before Google introduced Universal Search Results, it experimented with adding results to Web pages in results from different Vertical Searches; some people referred to this as vertical creep.

Vertical creep into regular search results in Google

Proposed replacementSocialLocalNews

Universal Results - 2005Because people wouldnt tab Google started showing results from multiple vertical searches in a set of Search results

Interface for a universal search

Vertical Search Tabs

One Boxes or Answer Boxes - 2007Sometimes Google would decide to show a single answerbox deciding it was the best response to a query, and might choose among different types.

Determination of a desired repository Googles OneBox Patent Application

SiteLinksGoogle might view the main navigation on a site, and determine which links were the most important and provide those as sitelinks. The criteria changed over time (as described in the following 2 patents)

Systems and methods for providing search results (2006) Sitelinks Based on Visual Location (2015)

SuggestionsIf Navigation links are images of text, include Alt Text.

Make links to important information prominent.

Knowledge Panels - 2011Enhance Your Site's AttributesApparatus and Method for Supplying Search Results with a knowledge Card

SuggestionsKnowledge Panels can contain information from Google MyBusiness, Wikipedia, other Knowledge Bases, Structured Data on the site

A Mybusiness KP can contain review snippets.A Brand KP might be based upon Wikipedia information.Both types of KP can have Social buttons.

Sentiment PhrasesKnowledge Panels contain links to Google Reviews, Reviews from the Web, and Critical Reviews.The Knowledge panels may contain sentiment-based snippets within them from reviews.Sentiment detection as a ranking signal for reviewable entities (2016)

Enriched Results - 2012Enriching Search ResultsThese enriched snippets contain features agreed to between Google and the parties involved, like mlb or the NFL.

Rich Snippets - 2009Generating specialized search results in response to patterned queriesRich Features are available based upon different markup that you publish content with as described on the Google page, Mark Up Your Content Items

EventsRatings

Structured Snippets - 2014Based Upon the Google Web Tables Project (2008), Google is using the Semantics of Tables on the Web to add facts to Snippets.

Introducing Structured Snippets, now a part of Google Web Search (2014)

A Structured Snippet

A Google Webtables Search Result

The table the snippet is pulled from

SuggestionsLimit boilerplate in a table Use table headings to add labels to the columns they head. Use meaningful attribute names in table headings to make it more likely the tables might appear and rank for a relevant query. Use meaningful titles, captions and semantically related text surrounding the table. ~ from Applying WebTables in Practice (2015)

Featured Snippets - 2015Featured snippets in searchTriggering Answer Boxes

Answers to questions showing featured snippets are from authoritative pages.The answers are chosen based upon how well they answer the questionBulleted & ordered lists may be selected as answersThese answers may be personalized.Suggestions

Test Structured DataStructured Data Testing Tool

See What Entities Google KnowsThe Entities that Google knows about can influence how search results appear you should learn about what entities Google knows about for your site.Knowledge Graph Search API Explorer

Understanding Entity LocationsGoogle tells us that they may remember the locations of different entities based upon their Machine ID number, which can be used to identify that entity.Interpreting User Queries Based on Nearby Locations

Understanding Images of EntitiesGoogle also tells us that they may remember the Machine ID numbers of entities for use in Image Search at Google.Improving Photo Search: A Step Across the Semantic Gap

Understanding Entities in TrendsGoogle Includes Freebase Machine ID Numbers in Google Trends URLs (h/t Barbara Starr). These MIDs are also shown in the KG API.

Google Trends Tracks Entities in Search

Same MID # as in the KG Search API

Google has reduced Search to querying Entities by MIDEntities, found in Knowledge Panels are used for trends in search, for Image Search, for locations of entities.What are the MIDs of the Entities you care about in search?How are those represented?

Thank You

Bill SlawskiDirector of Search MarketingGo Fish Digital@bill_slawski