Semantic Search

Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the search results.

A number of mechanisms are employed to do this:

• Query disambiguation – Through “search as you type” or via a “Did you mean” prompt the search engine references an ontology or other domain model to add context to potentially ambiguous queries (for example “diet” – did you mean “Health Eating”, “Vegetarian Diet” “Losing Weight”?)
• Search Result filtering – Facets that group the results into logical topic areas.  This provides an overview of the result set (a topic map) from which users can refine their search.
• Conceptual Navigators – having gained some idea of the users search context, further visual prompts can be provided again from a domain model or previous query history to take users to related topic areas.

Semaphore is a semantic search enabler

Smartlogic Semaphore is not a search engine – it is a Semantic Search enabler for any search engine that has the appropriate API access.  Semaphore for Google Search Appliance or Semaphore for Solr are examples of where we provide an integrated end-to end solution using best of breed Enterprise Search plus the market leading Open Semantic Platform.