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This is one of those things you may have heard whispers about – it’s not exactly a secret, but it’s not common knowledge either. So in case you haven’t heard, the way search engines work is about to change – dramatically.
Last month, Google rolled out its “knowledge graph”, which serves up facts and services in response to search terms – not just links to websites. It is the latest step in a process in which search engines are morphing into something quite new: vast brains that respond directly to questions posed in everyday language. “Search does a good job of returning pages,” says Shashidhar Thakur of Google. “But we can go beyond that and return knowledge.”