What is the Semantic Web?

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The Semantic Web is a vision of the way the Internet may develop in the future that will help you discover information more precisely and intelligently, with software that has a better understanding of what you are looking for and where to find it. The technical framework for building the Semantic Web is being designed and promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium, which helps steer the development of the Internet at large, and is closely allied to various schemes for representing and interpreting metadata.

The study of semantics is to do with the meaning of words and the relationships between them. One of the aims of the Semantic Web is to define information on the Web in ways that have distinct meanings, which can be interpreted and compared by computer software. By establishing a common framework to indicate the meaning of metadata, search engines will be able to apply logical reasoning to the queries they run.

Since metadata are of such significance to the Semantic Web, our reliance and trust in specific sources of information is a critical factor. Whether or not you regard a newspaper, public institution or friend of a friend as a reliable source is a matter of judgement and opinion. The way we manage that network of trust is fundamental to the Semantic Web.

See also:

• What is metadata?
• What is RDF?