Scientia imperii decus et tutamen – “Knowledge is the adornment and protection of the Empire”.
Google has received criticism for many of its deliberate money-grabbing tactics but, up until now, the Knowledge Graph has been held up as an example of Google at its best. A genuine attempt to provide users with the most accurate information by using the latest algorithm updates. However, the fact ads may soon begin appearing in this previously non-commercial spot is making many doubt the value of the Knowledge Graph entirely.
It began in May 2012 as part of the overall push towards an ‘internet of things’. Diverging from its understanding of language as a simple collection of the words, this more advanced thinking (as advanced elsewhere by schema/markup), allowed Google to display empirical facts about the subject of a search term directly on the SERP. For example, a location could come with a screenshot from Google Maps, an actor’s name would appear with pictures and a list of film roles, an album would appear with a tracklisting and so on. All this data came from independent sources, curated from locations such as Wikipedia, the World Bank, Freebase and others. In general, this was seen as a positive move, as it made use of search space that was devoted to ads for more ‘commercially-oriented’ terms.
In December, it was noted ads were being tested in the newly rolled-out car area of Knowledge Search, allowing visitors to click through to find the nearest dealer offering the vehicle in question. For a search for cars, where there are unlikely to be few nearby dealers, this is less pernicious. However, if this spreads to cover a wider range of products, this could have major implications. For example, recipe information could tell users which nearby restaurants offer the dish, giving Google the opportunity to promote certain retailers ahead of others.
While it still too early to say if we are going to see a pure blending of the Knowledge Graph (or Knowledge Carousel) with PPC listings, it is clear this is a dangerous precedent to set.