Knowledge graph

A knowledge graphA knowledge graph represents entities as nodes and their relationships as edges. It helps search engines and AI systems model things and how they connect.Open glossary entry → models real-world entitiesAn entity is a uniquely identifiable thing or concept, such as an organisation, person, brand, product, place or technical term. Search engines and AI systems process information as entities and their relationships.Open glossary entry → such as people, places, organisations or events as nodes and connects them through relationships as edges. This creates a network of things and their relationships rather than a mere collection of keywordsA keyword is the search term users enter into a search engine to find information, products or providers. Keywords are the basis against which rankings and visibility are measured.Open glossary entry →.

As a result, modern search is more semantic: Google, Bing, AI systems and knowledge graphs try to recognise entities and their connections, for example "RankScan → measures → search visibilitySearch visibility describes how present and findable a website is in the organic search results. It is not the same as traffic, but reflects theoretical findability.Open glossary entry →". The more clearly these relationships are signalled through content, structured dataSchema markup is code that describes a page's content in a structured way, so search engines understand it not just as text but as clearly classified information.Open glossary entry → and consistent profiles, the easier a brand is to classify.

In practice, the Google Knowledge Graph Search APIAn application programming interface (API) is an interface through which software systems communicate and exchange data. It defines how requests are made and answered.Open glossary entry → can search entities in the Google Knowledge Graph and uses schema.org types and JSON-LDJSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a data format for embedding structured data in a page, separate from the visible HTML. Google recommends it where technically possible.Open glossary entry → compatibility. It is useful for checks but does not offer a full view into all of Google's systems. Entity SEOEntity SEO ensures that search engines and AI systems can clearly recognise brands, people, products, services and topics and relate them to one another. It goes beyond pure keyword optimisation.Open glossary entry → does not guarantee a knowledge panel.