The change relies on technology called “semantic search” in which the search engine begins to understand the actual meaning of words and shows the key attributes of people, places and things that Google users are searching for. To do this, the company is drawing upon an ever-expanding database of information of about 500 million people, places and things and how they’re connected to one another, also known as a “knowledge graph.  “For the first time, the search engine understands real-world things,” quoted in the WSJ by Amit Singhal, a top Google search executive.  Read More about New Google Search