Glossary
Knowledge Graph (Google Knowledge Graph)
The Google Knowledge Graph is a semantic database that stores billions of facts about entities — people, places, organizations, things, and concepts — and the relationships between them. Launched in 2012, it shifted Google's understanding of search queries from matching keyword strings to comprehending real-world entities and their contexts. The Knowledge Graph powers the Knowledge Panels that appear on the right side of search results, providing structured summaries about well-known entities. It also underpins Google's ability to answer factual questions directly on the SERP and to surface relevant information across Google products including Search, Assistant, and AI Overviews. For SEO practitioners, the Knowledge Graph is the target for entity optimization: content that clearly defines entities, uses structured data markup, and establishes authoritative external references is more likely to be recognized, stored, and surfaced by the Knowledge Graph. As search shifts toward AI-generated answers, being represented with accurate, rich entity data in the Knowledge Graph has become a foundational visibility strategy.