Chasing keywords, links and rankings? Good luck to you. Here’s a glimpse of where Google is headed.

Most people think about search something like this:

user enters search query -> Google serves up pages with relevant HTML and lots of links -> user clicks-through

But this basic pattern is changing.

Since Google’s introduction of the Knowledge Graph, many search patterns now go like this:

user enters search query -> Google serves up information -> …

To get a sense of some of the basics, here are a few examples starring yours truly:

Query: how old is gyi tsakalakis

Query: where was gyi tsakalakis born

Query: what does gyi tsakalakis do

But who really cares about me?

Let’s take a look at some meaningful examples:

Query: how long has gerry spence been a lawyer

How about one more:

Query: when was cooney and conway founded

Starting to realize how this is different (and important)?

What do people find when they search for information about you?

If you’re interested in learning more about generating search results like these, look here, here and here.