Google’s fresh attempt against Facebook and Twitter - Get Updates directly on Google

Google is not merely used for advertising and visibility these days but its usage extends much more beyond that.
The search engine’s ultimate goal is to provide the most relevant and accurate information to user’s queries in the shortest time. The algorithms deployed by the Search Giant today are so sophisticated that users will get not only exactly what they want but also completely related additional facts.

Over the past few years, one new feature that appears along with the search results has become a hotly discussed topic. Yes, we are talking about the Knowledge Graph. These are times where we find the mobile gaming industry improving by leaps and bounds. The search queries related to online games have increased by a large volume. This article can clearly explain how avid gamers can make use of Google's Knowledge Graph to get instant game updates.

What is a Knowledge Graph?

The Knowledge Graph is a system launched by Google to build “link graph” between different people, places and things, and report facts about these entities. Its Google’s unique way of presenting a result along with additional details related to the topic so that user gets to know more about the product. They also help Google determine which are the most popular and the best relevant entries for particular searches.

To be more specific Knowledge graph is a database that extracts facts from millions of entities about keywords people frequently search and also provides a series of interconnected entities that the user might find useful. Along with the traditional search results, this can be considered as an incentive for the user to discover more entities. Using these graphs, Google models how pages link to each other.

How does Google collect these facts?

2009 - Google Squared was launched to extract facts and establish a relationship between individual entities. Google Squared extracted data from the web and presented it in a spreadsheet format. As the results derived were complicated and not user-friendly, they had to phase out this project.

2010 - Google’s purchased Metaweb and acquired Freebase, a database of facts. So Google's Knowledge Graph was powered in part by Freebase with its vast collection of facts. Subsequently, Wikipedia, CIA, Facebook became other sources of information for the Knowledge Graph.

However, drawing data from public sources like Wikipedia presents accuracy issues as Wikipedia could be modified by anyone.

Video games & Knowledge Graph

As noted in the beginning, the mobile gaming industry has taken the world by a storm. Mobile gaming is now the staple of the gaming market. The revenues generated by mobile gaming industry is staggering and have easily surpassed the traditional gaming industry for years now. Because of the increase in the number of smartphones and cheap data packages, there are legions of gaming companies now in the market offering gamers a multitude of games.

Only recently Google has made it easy for gamers to know more about the game, by including additional information about the game & its host in its Knowledge Graph. Games available in Google Play Store and App Store come classified as video games.

How can Gamers benefit from this?

When a gamer searches for a specific game, the knowledge graph would assist him by giving details like release date, supported platform, reviews, developer names and more importantly updates regarding the game.

Google has enabled the access to suggest changes in the Knowledge Panel to people who can represent an entity. This representative of the entity can update the featured image, the social profiles and specific stats for various categories. It is easier to analyze with the Knowledge Panel of a popular rummy app - Deccan Rummy.

Partnered with an online gaming website, the Indian rummy gaming app is found in both Appstore as well as Playstore. On observing the screenshot of Deccanrummy, we find that the most prominent feature in this knowledge panel is the appearance of updates posted directly on Google. Earlier such posting was available only to local businesses (Google My Business Post). However, a separate domain is now dedicated to this feature - post.google.com.

Google Posts

Google Posts is a new feature that allows popular entities to create their content directly on Google. Now that Knowledge Graph is extended to video games, the verified representative of a video game can publish their posts directly on the first page of Google. This content will remain in a blog within the search engine itself eg: Deccan Rummy on Google.

The post can either be a story from images or an article or an event or a simple poll. These posts will remain visible for a week unless the representative manually removes it. If it’s an invitation for an event or a tournament, it will run till the end of the event. With the help of Google Post video games can now:

Share the current promotions and offers
Invite for & promote their events
Posts updates about the games

How to follow updates?

There are 2 options to follow updates - Single search and No search.

Single Search Method -

1. Open the Google Search app

2. Search for their game of interest. Eg - Deccan Rummy.

3. Find the Knowledge panel (if the game has one).

Users can find the updates posted by the verified representative directly on Google.

No Search Method (Google Discover)-

1-3. Follow previous steps 1,2 and 3.

4. Press the Follow button in the Knowledge Panel.

Gamers can now find their favourite video game updates right in the Google Search app news feed(Rebranded as Google Discover) without a single search.

Relying on Facebook and Twitter feeds in order to know the updates is no longer is the only option. Gamers can now safely make use of Google’s Knowledge Graph and Google Post to provide them with accurate updates instantly.

This article was provided by Ganga Naresh, SEO Freelancer

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