Search is a fundamental part of life. We search for movies, music, and other entertainment on the internet. We shop for gifts and household items, even groceries, using the online stores and their own search mechanics. Some are more successful than others. If you want to get a little ethereal, Some people also search for the meaning of life – on and off the internet.
Search engine understanding has evolved and we’ve changed how we optimize for it as a result. Identifying keywords is no longer enough. You can add power to search through semantic technology. Machine learning or semantic technology is the basis for most commercial artificial intelligence (AI) systems. But where does semantic search fit in?
Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable data space. This is true in a closed system or on the Internet. It is providing context to a search query beyond just keywords.
The development of AI and natural language processing technologies have revolutionized the way a search engine retrieves information.
Computer algorithms interpret the words a user types and the number of web pages based on the frequency of linguistic connections in the billions of texts the system was trained on.
These relationships are strengthened by professional annotators who hand-tune the results, and the algorithms that generate them. Web searchers tell the algorithms which connections are the best through what they click on. Semantic search aims to get at the real intent of the query, rather than simply matching a page to a search string.Semantic search has evolved in large part due to the rise of voice search. Mobile voice commands are now commonplace.
In this new environment, to make your content findable it is important to create content that clearly and concisely answers a common query at the top of the page before delving into more specific details.
And, we might add, it has never been more important to have someone with the expertise and knowledge handling your content, developing your taxonomies, and making your information findable.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
