Google to improve search results with “semantic search”

It looks like Google has got some big plans for its search engine over the coming months. According to reports online, will be implementing “semantic search” to analyze the meaning of words and phrases typed into the search query box to return answers instead of just a list of ranked search results. This seems pretty promising – after all, better answers without having to navigate away from Google sounds like a whole lot of convenience that people wouldn’t mind having.

It is also said that Google will be using this semantic search technology to identify information about specific entities in a webpage to determine its search result ranking – a significant change from the “PageRank” formula that it’s been using all this while (more links to the page = higher rank). If these changes do come true, it looks like there’s going to be a whole new SEO game for webmasters to play in the future. In the meantime, we’ll just have to sit back and wait for an official announcement from Google to see if it happens.

[WSJ]