Have you ever noticed that Google can handle almost any question you throw at it these days? Just look at the result for this query: Semantic search is an information retrieval process used by modern search engines to return the most relevant search results. It focuses on the meaning behind search queries instead of the traditional keyword matching. The terminology comes from a branch of linguistics called semantics, which is concerned with the study of meaning. To add another layer of complexity, compare what you type into Google with what you say to What Is Semantic Siri, Alexa, or the Google Assistant. Keywords now become conversations.
There are just so
Many ways to express the same idea, and search engines need to deal with all of them. They need to be able to match the content in their index with your search query company data based on the meaning of both. However challenging this may sound already, it’s just the beginning. Many searches are unintentionally ambiguous Around 40% of English words are polysemous—they have two or more meanings. It’s arguably the most significant challenge that semantic search is trying to solve. For example, the keyword “python” has 533,000 monthly searches in the US alone: If I were to ever search for “python,” I’d most likely be referring to the programming language. But anyone outside of the tech industry would likely expect the actual snake or the legendary British comedy troupe.
What Is Semantic here is
That words rarely have a definitive meaning without context. On top of the polysemous words, you have countless nouns that can also be adjectives, verbs, or both. And we’re still in the BQB Directory scope of literal meanings. It gets even more interesting if we delve into inferred meanings (think sarcasm). Context is everything in semantics, and it brings us to the remaining two points. That’s truly impressive. Here’s what Google has to do to understand this query: Know that “partner” means wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/spouse. Understand that Obi-Wan appeared in multiple movies and series played by different actors. Make the connections. Display search results in a way that reflects the ambiguity of “obi wan.” I can’t even imagine what kind of search results I’d get if I did that search in 2010 or earlier.
