Google Adds Knowledge Graph To Search To Recapture Lost Market Share

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) may have had some idea that they were losing market share in the U.S. search market as the rise of Bing from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) with Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).  The latest report was roughly 30% market share of U.S. search to Bing versus 64.42% for Google.  While Google is still more than double the Bing share, this is perhaps one of the closest readings ever between the two search engines.  We, and others, have noted how Google has become very distracted from its core search business, and now it seems like the company is trying to refocus its efforts in search.

The internet search leader is launching the “Knowledge Graph” to create an intelligent search model.  The move is to instantly bring relevant information based on a search query.  It claims to have more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects.

Amit Singhal, SVP, Engineering, noted in his Google Blog post, “We hope this added intelligence will give you a more complete picture of your interest, provide smarter search results, and pique your curiosity on new topics. We’re proud of our first baby step—the Knowledge Graph—which will enable us to make search more intelligent, moving us closer to the “Star Trek computer” that I’ve always dreamt of building. Enjoy your lifelong journey of discovery, made easier by Google Search, so you can spend less time searching and more time doing what you love.”

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Google shares are up 2.5% at $626.48 after recovering handily this morning; its 52-week trading range is $473.02 to $670.25.

JON C. OGG