Why e-commerce brands should pay more attention to the Google knowledge graph

Feeding Google’s Knowledge Graph with accurate data is crucial for brands, as it helps Google understand the brand’s identity, offerings, and target audience. Historically, brands have dedicated considerable efforts to optimizing for the Knowledge Graph. With the emergence of Generative AI, this focus becomes even more crucial, especially for E-Commerce companies. As people increasingly start to use GenAI technology when making buying decisions, the risk of hallucinations generated by an “ill-informed” AI becomes much greater. To mitigate this risk, the key lies in supplying precise information through the Knowledge Graph. The icing on the cake is that you also get your knowledge panel with all relevant information. In this session, Sara will show you how to mitigate the Gen AI risk by paying more attention to the Knowledge Graph.

Transcript

1. — Why e-commerce brands should pay more attention to the Google knowledge graph
2. Let me introduce myself – SEO Specialist at Liip, a web & mobile development agency – Kalicube contributor – #SEOnerdSwitzerland Meetup co-founder
3. What you need to know about the KG? 01 Why is the KG important for GenAI? 02 Is the KG used in SGE? 03 Is the KG used in Gemini? 04 Agenda 05 How can e-commerce obtain a product KP? 05 How can e-commerce obtain a company KP?
4. What you need to know about the knowledge graph
5. What is the knowledge graph? A knowledge graph is a type of database that stores information and is used to represent knowledge in a way that is easy for machines to understand and process. The KG answers factual information.
6. Google has many MREID for the same brand. There is likely more than one knowledge graph or the knowledge graphs have several verticals that are inter-connected
7. Knowledge graph Knowledge panel Visible part
8. Company knowledge panel 8 https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/02pzrqr Sources used by Google: — Wikipedia — Wikidata — Company website — Social profile — Relevant news sites — etc. https://kalicube.pro/trusted-sources The knowledge panel is the visible part of the knowledge graph
9. Product knowledge panel 9 https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/11scgwckvr Sources used by Google: — Merchant center — Manufacturer center — Structured data — etc. The knowledge panel is the visible part of the knowledge graph
10. Knowledge graph influence Knowledge panel (Search, SGE) GenAI (Chatbots, SGE) Visible part of the KG Avoiding hallucinations
11. Why is the Knowledge graph important from a business perspective? Pubcon Fabrice Canel No brand wants users to be given inaccurate answers. Knowledge panel + GenAI GenAI
12. Why is the Knowledge Graph important for GenAI?
13. GenAI GenAI is a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) that can create content at the click of a button… but it also has a pitfall – hallucinations. The risk is that GenAI gives the wrong information about your product and brand. Neither you nor Google wants that.
14. Knowledge Graph A knowledge graph is a type of database that stores information and is used to represent knowledge in a way that is easy for machines to understand and process. The KG answers factual information. This is the kind of info that you want Google to pick up when talking about your brand and product.
15. Solving the hallucination problem GenAI Hallucination problem solved Knowledge graph
16. Let me tell you the story of Anaconda March 2023
17. Solving the hallucination problem with RAG Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Survey External knowledge bases = Knowledge graph Web indexing, etc.
18. Is the Google Knowledge Graph used in the search generative experience (SGE)?
19. Is the Company knowledge graph used in SGE?
20. Is the Product knowledge graph used in SGE?
21. Summary KG used in SGE Yes/No Company Yes Product Yes
22. Is the Google Knowledge graph used in Gemini?
23. …This made me think 23
24. Is the knowledge graph used by Gemini? 24 Double-check response Factual information
25. Let’s ask Gemini a factual question The knowledge graph contains factual information. Which means that a factual question should obtain a response from the knowledge graph.
26. Gemini is disambiguating
27. Gemini proved me wrong
28. Unclear if Gemini uses knowledge graphs yet, research ongoing, but…there are things we can observe – Gemini has the info but do not always display it – Gemini data has been updated recently – Gemini has layers of protection (LLM Guardrails)
29. Gemini has the information but does not always display it 29 Misspelled
30. Gemini data has been updated recently Credits goes to Gus Pelogia Credits goes to Jason Barnard
31. Gemini has layers of protection (LLM Guardrails) For GDPR reasons, Google has limited requests for person information via a prompt system, so if the LLM detects a person, you can't get information about that person. However, when you make mistakes such as misspelling the first and/or last name, it no longer detects a person entity but tokens that fall outside the rule and responds as best it can Vincent Terrasi
32. Trick the system 32 … misspelling remove the people protection Misspelled
33. Another example of people protection 33 1 2 3
34. We are working on understanding better the protections…to be continued Public figure Not Public figure Not Public figure Not Public figure Ulrika Viberg Sara Moccand-Sayegh Gus Pelogia Nicolas Piquero
35. Why you care about the layers of protection ( Guardrails in LLM) LLMs outputs could be inaccurate, offensive, or biased. Guardrails help filter out such content, preventing brand reputation damage and potential customer outrage. They may be too cautions and filter out product that are safe.
36. Bonus: understanding Gemini results If you click “understand the results” in Google Gemini No code = no schema (schema are structured data).
37. How can e-commerce obtain a product Knowledge Panel?
38. What info is shown in the product knowledge panel? - Product information - Product price range - Where to buy the product online - Product definition - Product review
39. What e-commerce should do with a new product Description Schema Merchants Manufacturer Product schema Offer schema Product variant schema
40. Where does the product Knowledge Panel take its information from? – Merchant center – Manufacturer center – Structured data – Website product review (structured and unstructured data) There a wide range of sources! The web is vast, and it’s difficult for search engines to inter-connect all the information. Which is why you need to help.
41. Results of connecting the information Andrea Volpini of Wordlift shared this graph showing the results after the information on the web was inter-connected for a product of a well-known brand
42. If there is one thing to choose to connect the elements, it’s the GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) Andrea Volpini
43. GTIN schema
44. GTIN Merchant Center
45. What if you don’t have a GTIN… Find another Unique Product Identifiers to connect everything…
46. Bonus: some Wordlift resources on the product knowledge panel 1. The GS1 Digital Link explained for SEO Jedis https://wordlift.io/blog/en/gs1-digital-link-seo/ 2. From GS1 Global Forum to SEO Innovation: Insights for a Connected E-Commerce Ecosystem https://wordlift.io/blog/en/from-gs1-global-forum-to-seo-innovation/ 3. An SEO Passport for your Products: the Unique Product Identifier https://wordlift.io/blog/en/unique-product-identifiers/ 4. The Power of Product Knowledge Graph for E-commerce https://wordlift.io/blog/en/product-knowledge-graph/
47. How can e-commerce obtain a company Knowledge Panel?
48. Remember: we could say that the KP is the visible part of the KG
49. Kalicube Process The Kalicube process allows companies to feed the correct information to Google/Bing. This will ultimately result in a rich SERP and in driving GenAI answer/related questions. https://kalicube.com/guides/ 49 Become an entity
50. What understanding means In this phase, companies want to build an understanding of the brand, including its identity, its offerings, and its target audience. In practice, this means becoming an Entity and feeding the machine with the right information about the company and the ecosystem. To be in the knowledge graph and ultimately have the knowledge panel Google needs: 1. To understand who you are 2. Google needs be confident in understanding. So you need consistency in the information.
51. — Google understands who I am — Google needs to trust what it understands — So you need consistency in the information Let’s check an example using myself
52. Step-by-step for understanding 1. Have a description of your company 2. Make sure that there is consistency on the web in the company description 3. Use the Entity Home (concept created by Jason Barnard) to feed the machine information about your company → This is normally your/about-us page 4. Use your Entity Home to connect the dots with Schema.org
53. The Entity Home is a term created by Jason Barnard to define the web page recognized by Google as the authoritative source for information about a given entity (brand, company, person, product, podcast, music group, etc.). What is an entity home? Your goal is that the entity home is your website and not some social media page, because by having your website as an entity home, you can better control the information Google is getting.
54. Bonus: knowledge panel checklist Jason Barnard has created a checklist for the knowledge panel which you can obtain for free: https://solutions.kalicube.com/knowledge-panel-checklist
55. Thank you @moccandsayegh /moccandsayeghsara/