[Build Backlinks Online] 101 Google Answer Boxes: A Journey into the Knowledge Graph

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, '101 Google Answer Boxes: A
Journey into the Knowledge Graph'


Posted by Dr-Pete

At MozCon last month, I gave a talk titled "Beyond 10 Blue Links" that
included 85 screenshots of Google SERP features that went beyond the traditional
organic listing:






I purposely tried to overwhelm people and to show just how much the landscape
is changing, but the truth is that this was just one part of the big picture.
So, I'd like to take a deeper journey today â a trip through Google's
"answer box" â to show not only how SERPs are changing, but how the answer
box reveals the direction and power of Google's Knowledge Graph.

What's an answer box?

An "answer box" is a SERP feature, usually displayed in a light-gray box, that
occurs above the organic results (left column) and tries to directly answer a
question. For example, if you were wondering what a "SERP" is and Googled
"define serp", you'd see this:




Most answer boxes are primarily text, contain a relatively short answer (when
possible), and may give limited information about the source of the answer.
Seeing is believing, so let's jump right in.


(I) People & Relationships


Everybody loves celebrities, right? According to the supermarket checkout
aisle, they're just better than the rest of us. Let's start with some answer
boxes about people.

1. "Is Justin Timberlake married"

Sorry, ladies (and gentleman, depending on your persuasion), the short answer
is: "yes". This same wedding also took Jessica Biel off the market â I
feel like the government should have gotten involved.



2. "Ben Stiller's dad"

You can also check out other relationships, like famous parents:



3. "Jerry Stiller's kids"

Some relationships are many-to-one. Here's an answer box with richer content:



4. "How tall was Abraham Lincoln"

Was Abe really that tall, or were all the other Old-Timey people just really
short, so he seemed tall by comparison? Turns out, he was pretty tall.



5. "How old is Bryan Adams"

So, the other day, I'm listening to "Summer of '69" and I started wondering
how old Bryan Adams actually was in 1969. Turns out, he was barely 10 years old,
and he wants us to believe he started a band? I'm on to you, Bryan Adams!



6. "How old is Mickey Mouse"

I'm not crying â that's just fairy dust in my eye (hat tip to
@scheidja)!



7. "Walt Disney's birthday"

Of course, we can also look at the other side of the circle of life:



8. "Jesus birthday"

Interestingly, Google includes much more than just data about contemporary
folks:



9. "Genghis Khan death"

Death information (and sometimes location) is available for historical
figures, as well:



10. "Gandhi assassination"

Other notable dates related to people are also available, although not as
consistently:



11. "Chaucer buried"

A serious note: If you're ever in Westminster Abbey, take a moment to realize
that your standing on the graves of kings, queens, and poets.



12. "Justin Timberlake job"

What does JT actually do? Pretty much everything, because he's amazing:



13. "Conan O'Brien education"

Did you know that Conan went to Harvard? You do now.



14. "Paul Hogan nationality"

I'd like to apologize to our friends down under for our bizarre fascination
with you during the 80s. Point of fact, though: Crocodile Dundee is legitimately
Australian.



15. "Fun singer"

I don't know if he's actually fun or not, but kudos on capturing the SERP:



16. "Gandhi Bacon number"

If you've ever wondered why the internet exists, here's your answer (hat-tip
to @BradyDCallahan).




(II) Athletes & Sports





Athletes are people, too, or so ESPN tells me. The sports realm has a number
of unique answer boxes.

17. "How much does Beckham make"

Oddly, this seems uniquely available to athletes, for the most part. No word
on what Victoria Beckham is cashing in these days.



18. "Kobe Bryant's number"

When you need to settle a bar bet, answer boxes look good on mobile, too.



19. "Peyton Manning's team"

In case you're like me, and occasionally get the Manning brothers confused...



20. "Where is Tiger"

The format isn't quite your typical answer box, but this is a great example of
just how much Google is interpreting queries. Note that this only appears near
active tournament dates (hat tip to @scheidja)




Fun fact: We originally saw this for "Where is Roger", and it brought up
results for Roger Federer. Of course, we all know that there's only one Roger.

21. "Cubs score"

If you're a Cubs fan, like me, and in perpetual need of torturing yourself,
Google's got you covered:



22. "NL Central standings"

You can also access division/league stats for many pro sports. Keep in mind
that these are seasonal, and only seem to appear during the active season for
any particular sport.



23. "Cubs schedule"

Here's an expanding schedule of upcoming games:



24. "Where do the Yankees play"

If you're really new to the sports world, fear not â there's an answer
box for you, too:




Fun fact: This answer box does not actually say "Duh". Seriously, though.

25. "How many seats at Yankee stadium"

That's a lot of hot dogs. Inferior, New York hot dogs, that is.



26. "Stanley Cup champion"

Yeah, baby. Even we Chicagoans get to win something now and then.



27. "NHL Stanley Cup"

This isn't currently active, but during playoffs and championship series, you
can see the entire schedule and historical scores:



28. "Tournament brackets"

For March Madness 2013, Google launched an entire bracketology feature (not
currently active):




(III) Landmarks & Places





People shouldn't have all the fun. Places have feelings, too. Ok, they don't
have feelings, but they do have answer boxes.

29. "Who built Wrigley Field"

Historical data is available for many major landmarks:



30. "When was the Empire State Building built"

Did you realize that the first skyscraper didn't exist until after the
elevator was invented? People are lazy.



31. "How tall is the Space Needle"

It's been just over 50 years since someone thought: "Let's put a UFO on a
stick!"



32. "How many floors is the Sears Tower"

It'll always be the Sears Tower to me, unless we also get the Arnold Tower and
Mr. Drummond Tower. Then, I might come around.



33. "Population of Chicago"

Some answer boxes have specialized, rich content. This population trend graph
is one of the more interesting ones:



34. "Size of Chicago"

You probably never actually wondered this, but I got a little crazy writing
this post:



35. "Chicago unemployment rate"

Not one of our happier stats, but definitely an interesting, rich answer box:



36. "Seattle weather"

When I'm packing for the home office, this comes in handy. Google has all but
taken over this space from the major weather sites. If you want local weather,
you can just search "weather" or "temperature".



37. "Seattle Mayor"

When I need to study up on my second home, Google's there for me:



38. "Washington Governor"

There seem to be answer boxes for most major local, state, and Federal
offices.



39. "Capital of Washington"

Note to self: Seattle is not the capital of Washington.



40. "Washington state flower"

You know what Illinois' state flower is? The violet. Way to overcomplicate
things, Washington.



41. "Washington state bird"

Why was learning this stuff so important in school? No one has ever jumped out
of an alley and shouted "Quick, what's your state bird?!"



42. "Canada languages"

What language do they speak in Canadia? It's Canadese, right?



43. "Canadian currency"

Also, they have money in Canada. Who knew?



44. "Canadian Prime Minister"

It's like they're a real country. FYI: you have to actually know the proper
form of government to get this answer box â "Canadian President" and
"Canadian head honcho" don't work.



45. "Mexico dialing code"

If you need to call your friends across either border, Google makes it easier
for you:



46. "How big is the Pacific Ocean"

"Pretty damned big" would also have been an acceptable answer.



47. "How old is the world"

You can ask questions about just about anything georgraphic, including the
entire earth (hat-tip to @zafeuer).



48. "Radius of Saturn"

Then again, why restrict yourself to earth-based factoids?





49. "How far is Saturn"

Ok, I meant "How far is Saturn from the earth", but this just goes to show you
that Google still has a few kinks to work out (hat-tip to @IAmPhilSharp).



50. "How far is Saturn from the sun"

Sometimes, you just have to be specific. Oddly, distance from the earth is not
available, but distance from the sun is.



51. "How far to Seattle"

Of course, the "how far" answer box does have legitimate uses. I wonder this
every time I get a "Free Cupcakes" email from the office (which is about 17
times per day).



52. "Who discovered Neptune"

Here's a people and planets crossover answer box. Apparently, it took a lot of
people to find Neptune.




Fun fact: John "Couch" Adams was the lesser known and lazier brother of our 6th
president, John Quincy Adams.


(IV) Conversions & Calculators


Questions about numbers and units often yield interactive answer boxes. Here's
a list of conversion and calculator features.

53. "How big is an acre"

Building on our geography queries, you can easily convert units of area:



54. "70 Fahrenheit to Celsius"

This one's handy for the MozCast followers out there (don't worry, building
this in is definitely on our to-do list):



55. "5 years in hours"

This is how long I spent in graduate school. Funny, it felt like at least
50,000 hours.



56. "How many millimeters in a cubit"

Some questions yield direct answers, and not a conversion box. It could have
something to do with no one under the age of 103 ever measuring things in
cubits.



57. "Bits in a terabyte"

Here's a conversion calculator for us geeks. My first hard drive was 10 MB.
Now, you can get a 1 TB external HD for $79.99. By the time I finish this post,
they'll be $39.99.



58. "Dollars to Euros"

Google completely took over currency conversion queries. You can also just
search for "currency converter".



59. "What is the speed of light"

Some specific scientific values have direct answer boxes. You can also look up
mathematical constants, like "pi" and "Euler's constant".



60. "7 * 6"

Enter a mathematical expression, and you'll get a scientific calculator answer
box. Expressions can be pretty elaborate, including parentheses.



61. "Answer to life the universe and everything"

Of course, if 42 is really the answer you want, then you should be asking the
right question.



62. "sin(x)"

Enter a function or complex equation, and you'll get back a two-dimensional
graph.



63. "sin(x)+cos(y)"

With the right multivariate equations, you can trigger a three-dimensional
graph.



64. "How many calories in a taco"

Finally, the most important calculator of all: the taco calculator. Ok, it's
actually the nutrition calculator. Sadly, Google will not answer the question
"How good is cheese?"







(V) Dates & Times


We covered a few date-based answer boxes in the people section (like
birthdates), but that's just the tip of the iceberg for date and time questions.

65. "When is Thanksgiving"

You can easily find the dates of many upcoming holidays, although a few minor
holidays seem to be missing.



66. "When was Hanukkah"

In some cases, you can query the last occurrence of a holiday. Google also
shows ranges for events that cover multiple dates.



67. "Mothers Day 2020"

Add a year to get the dates for future holidays. The year 2020 was as far
ahead as I could get Google to currently go, but this may vary depending on the
event.



68. "Fall Equinox"

This is the proper form of the question "What happened to summer?!".



69. "Time"

Google is personalizing more answer boxes, and queries like "time" work now.
If you want the time in another location, enter sometimg like "local time
Seattle".



70. "Sunrise Seattle"

On the days when Seattle actually has sun, Google will tell you when that
alleged sun rises and sets.



71. "Timer 5 minutes"

Forget your stopwatch (and your iPhone, and your tablet...)? You can set a
timer of just about any length directly through a search query. Added bonus: The
alert is more obnoxious than a late-80s car alarm.



72. "Length of Martian day"

Don't you hate it when you've got a call scheduled with Martian clients and...
ok, I really have no idea why you'd ever need this.







(VI) Movies, Media, & More


You can't spell "celebrity" without "le brit", which is French for "The
British". Ok, half of that's not true, and none of it is relevant. Here are some
answer boxes about stuff celebrities do.

73. "When was Star Wars released"

Here's a query I run when I want to feel l old. I was almost seven, for the
record (hat-tip to @adamcarson).



74. "Who directed The 300"

I ask Google this question about twice a week, just to make sure I never watch
any more of his movies.



75. "The 300 sequel"

Unfortunately, Google has no regard for my feelings:



76. "The Dark Knight rating"

Is it too early to let my 3-year-old watch the latest Batman saga? Ok, yeah,
it probably is.



77. "Rocky writer"

Did you know that Stallone not only wrote the script to Rocky, but he did it
in three days? Give Sly a little credit.



78. "James Bond movies"

Here's a slightly odd one â a not even remotely complete list of Bond
films:



79. "Narnia movie list"

The much shorter Narnia series gets a complete list, including thumbnails.
Other queries, like "Harry Potter movies" generate a Knowledge Graph carousel.
Google seems to be experimenting.



80. "When did The Simpsons debut"

Purists will probably note that The Simpsons actually debuted on the Tracey
Ullman show in 1987. This is why purists have no friends (hat-tip to
@adamcarson).



81. "Super Friends final episode"

Farewell, Zan, Jayna, and Gleek. We hardly knew thee.



82. "Sunny in Philadelphia network"

The curse of TiVo is that I honestly have no idea when any show airs or what
channel it's on.



83. "Greatest American Hero theme song"

"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so
FREE-EE-EEE..." You're welcome.



84. "Honey Boo Boo genre"

When I want to remember which genre never to watch, I run this search. Ok, so
I watch Top Chef. And Top Chef: Masters. And The Voice. And Pimp My Ride. STOP
JUDGING ME!



85. "Harry Potter author"

Once upon a time, there were these things called books. Don't worry â
there's an app for that now.



86. "Grand Theft Auto 5 release"

If you can't wait for whatever it is you kids can't wait for these days, then
here you go (hat-tip to @KrisRoadruck).



87. "Wicked composer"

It's not quite as great as coming up at the top of "wicked awesome composer,"
but I'm still pretty jealous.







(VII) Companies & Brands


For all the talk of big brands dominating the SERPs, it's surprising how few
of them currently have Knowledge Graph data. Here are a few examples of brand
answer boxes.

88. "Amazon stock"

Google's rich stock ticker answer box is probably one of the most obvious
examples of company-related data:



89. "When was Microsoft founded"

You can get direct answers for a few questions about major companies,
including their founding date (hat-tip to @wilreynolds).



90. "Amazon founder"

This is also the new answer to "Who owns the Washington Post?" (although that
doesn't get an answer box).



91. "Samsung headquarters"

You can look up the corporate headquarters for many large companies.



92. "Best Buy customer service"

Finally, a few companies pull up customer service phone numbers, but this data
seems fairly spotty.




(VIII) Miscellaneous

Here are a few answer boxes that didn't fit neatly into any of my other
categories.

93. "UA 241"

Want your flight status in about 17 clicks less than it takes on the airlines'
sites? Just search your flight number.



94. "Flights to Seattle"

This isn't technically an answer box (See the "Sponsored" notification in the
upper-right), but it goes to show how much the line between organic and paid
content is starting to blur.



95. "Define googol"

Some words will pull up definitions in an answer box. Google may be testing an
even richer definition box, which includes word origins and usage data.



96. "Search in mandarin"

Translation is available for some terms, but the implementation is
inconsistent at best.



97. "Mono symptoms"

Google has experimented heavily in the health/medical niche. Here's a detailed
symptoms answer box that pulls data from three major health sites.



98. "Cancer treatment"

I'm not sure cancer treatment can or should be summed up in a couple of
paragraphs, but Google is apparently going to try.



99. "Poison control"

This doesn't fit the typical format of an answer box, but here's a situation
where people obviously can benefit from a quick answer.



100. "How fast is an F-22 Raptor"

A few vehicles have statistics available in answer boxes. I would have
expected more cars (especially high-end models) to have them, but I've mostly
found aircraft data (hat-tip to @scheidja).



101. "Boeing 787 engine"

Here's one I wouldn't expect to have an answer box â the engines on a
Boeing 787 Dreamliner.




The Knowledge Graph Connection

So, where do these answer boxes come from? Some, like stock tickers and
weather charts, are clearly custom designed and can involve exclusive data
partnerships. When it comes to the factoids, though, most of these answers come
directly from Google's Knowledge Graph.


Let's go back to the very first example. Here's a portion of the Knowledge
Graph entry for Justin Timberlake:




Notice the circled factoid, which just happens to match our first answer box.
So, let's try a little experiment. Let's pick something you've probably never
searched for: as a kid, I had a fascination with the Red Baron, who flew a plane
called the Fokker Dr.I. If you search for "Fokker Dr.I", you'll see this KG
entry:




So, what if we picked a factoid, like the Fokker's wingspan? Sure enough, if
you search Google for "Fokker Dr.I wingspan", you get this answer box:




"Fokker Dr.I top speed", "...length", and "...first flight" all return answer
boxes, but, oddly, "...manufacturer" doesn't. I'd say that about 70-80% of the
factoids I found in Knowledge Graph entries could be used to generate answer
boxes, but sometimes Google was very picky about how the question was worded.


This all goes to show that the Knowledge Graph is much more than just an
isolated box of information in the right-hand column. It's fundamentally
changing the nature of organic results and driving many of Google's direct
answers to questions. As KG continues to expand, it's going to be critical to
understand how it impacts your money keywords.


It also goes to show that these 101 answer boxes are just a sampling of what's
available in the wide world of Google's Knowledge Graph. Have any favorites of
your own? Be sure to share them in the comments.

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