Google may be the most popular search engine of all by a large margin, but when it comes to serving relevant results they are humble enough to know there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Google is working hard to deliver the highest level of quality where their search results are concerned. The company is now employing a semantic search technology, altering the existing algorithm in an attempt to make Google’s suggestions more relevant.

In the past, the search engine relied on the analysis of keywords to conduct searches. The search engine was not capable of deciphering the meaning of words in effort to return results. Google executives have stated in the past that semantic technologies might utilized in the search engine in the future in combination with its algorithm rather than as a replacement.

The first should enhance the suggested related search information that appears at the bottom of a results page by broadening the scale of related searches to related concepts within the search terms. If you search the words “principles of physics,” for example, Google says its engine will suggest additional queries involving angular momentum, special relativity, big bang, and quantum mechanics.

The second tweak regarding snippets will come in handy for longer searches. Beginning today, when you enter more than three words into Google.com the engine will provide more extensive descriptions (highlighting matched keywords in bold) for each result, which should result in fewer instances where you have to follow a link to see whether it actually contains what you’re looking for. The new algorithm offers more context, highlighting the words within every query in bold. For those longer queries, the number of lines per snippet has been increased to provide more information.

By employing semantic search technology, Google is aiming to improve the quality of the results of search queries. The goal in tinkering with the existing search algorithm is to make Google’s suggestions more relevant.

No word has been giving on how results will or will not mesh with Google Groups, which has had a history of providing results on a vast number of keywords and topics.

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