Entity

Things, not strings

Google made the idea explicit when it launched the Knowledge Graph in 2012 under the banner “things, not strings,” describing it as “an intelligent model … that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another.” At launch it already held more than 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts about them. An entity has a name (sometimes several), a type, attributes, and links to other entities. That structure is what lets Google disambiguate: search “Taj Mahal” and it works out whether you mean the monument or the blues musician, then serves the right slice of results.

For a page, being understood as (or clearly about) a specific entity beats stuffing keywords. Google pulls entity data from public sources like Wikipedia and Wikidata, licensed databases, structured data on the page, and the open web. You reinforce which entity a page is about with a few concrete moves:

• schema.org markup with sameAs links pointing to your Wikipedia, Wikidata, or official profiles
• consistent naming and repeated mentions of the entity and its close associations
• clear headings and internal links that map an entity’s attributes across your site

Treat your site as chapters about one topic, not isolated posts. Entities are also the currency of AI search: assistants that cite sources lean on the same associations to decide who is authoritative on a subject.