A knowledge panel is a short summary of a business or other entity on the web. Normally it’s on the right-hand side of the screen for desktop/tablet, or as a box in the stream on a mobile (Bing sometimes splits the info across the top and right). The search engine’s intention is to provide direct answers to the most commonly sought for information about a business. This includes: phone, address, business hours, type of business, photos and customer reviews/ratings.
Google and Bing both display a Knowledge Panel. Both search engines partner with third parties to supplement functionality and info provided here. For example:
- Google partners with TrustYou for review summaries of hotels. They also pull in hotel booking & rates info from a range of popular hotel booking sites.
- Bing partners with TripAdvisor for reviews and Foursquare for tips from past customers.
- Both search engines also use reviews from Yelp, Facebook and other key review sites.
Google sometimes includes a short summary of the business. These are currently written by hand. These are not available on demand but if the information is badly wrong, a correction can be requested.
Hotels and restaurant knowledge panels usually provide online booking and pricing information. Restaurants also typically have links to their menu.
Tips:
Business owners can have some small influence on what shows in the Knowledge Panel. The basis for the information comes from the business listing (Google My Business / Bing Places), the linked-to website and other authority third party sites. In Australia, this includes the Yellow Pages™.
See the helpful links page for:
- requesting booking info in the knowledge panel about your business
- correction to the business summary