Semantic search has suddenly become the most talked about subject in various SEO communities. With a mention on Google Hummingbird update, we have all sort of articles floating on the web.
So, while I was researching for my earlier post, ‘semantic search’ intrigued me as well and I had to dig in further.
Interestingly, David Amerland has a book written on it and has multiple articles on the web explaining the term. Quoting from the first article of his –
Semantic search is the presentation of answers in search in a way that understands the search query and the intent behind it
Which means that it will understand the natural language that we speak. Big thing?? Yes indeed, because semantic search will take into account the contextual meaning of the search term and not focus on specific keywords.
So as I see it, semantic search has been put into test, with a view that in future, lot of search traffic will be driven from the devices. People will just talk into their devices and ask question like – “Where is the nearest restaurant“, followed by – “Does it serve pizza?” and going further – “What is their famous pizza?“.
Thus, each of the above query will take the intent of the user, that is eating the best pizza in a restaurant nearby and semantic search will answer the queries accordingly. In the background though, there is a lot of science going on. The query engine will read the query and apply location rules, relationship rules and look for synonyms and much more to give you the exact response.
And if you’re looking at how content should be going forward, Stephan Hovnanian‘s post had some great points, top 3:
1. Have content in multiple forms
2. Ace schema.org markup
3. Get active on G+ (your social signals count a lot, so does your interactions with influencers)
And finally, look at few videos and a Hangout session that will help in further understanding of semantic search.
What you can do next?
1. Share your understanding about Semantic search
2. What changes do you suggest to content writers in order to adapt to the future of search
3. Add posts that you think can make this list more powerful
Top 5 Posts on Semantic Search
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