The semantic web is a future-oriented vision of the way the internet will work. The idea is that rather than just providing a list of links, websites will be designed to make sense, to create a cohesive, easily accessible whole that can be understood by machines as well as humans. Building a semantic core for a website is a crucial first step towards making your content machine-readable.
In this article, we’ll teach you how to do just that, using a combination of basic information retrieval technique, natural language processing, and machine learning to build an automated semantic parser.
What is a semantic core and how does it differ from a plain website?
A semantic core is the foundation upon which your website is built. Typically, it is a collection of documents (such as, blog posts, product pages, etc.) along with some metadata about these documents (such as, the date, category, and tags).
The semantic web is a vision of the internet where every piece of information can be located and accessed through a single source. In practical terms, this means that rather than just having pages of information that you have to hunt down and stitch together yourself, the data will be stored and structured in a way that allows you to answer questions about it with minimal effort.
The best way to understand how a semantic core works is to compare it to the conventional approach of building a website. Let’s say you want to create a website about flowers. With a conventional approach, you might start by coming up with a few blog posts about the topic. These posts could then be tied to an overarching topic (such as, “plant varieties”), and each article could have several headers and sub-headers with key facts about the flower (e.g., where it comes from, how many petals it has, its blooming season, etc.).
While this does provide users with a coherent overview of the topic, it doesn’t offer much structure. If you decide you want to add another topic (such as, “plant types”), you have to go back and edit all the previous blog posts. This can be a time-consuming and laborious process.
To make matters worse, assume you want to update your website with some new information about the topic of flowers. If you used the conventional method to create your website, you would have to go back and edit every single piece of content, including the blog posts. This is because unlike a semantic core, a conventional website is designed in a manner that is easy to update. If you can’t find the information you’re looking for on a particular page, you have to delete it and reconstruct the entire page from scratch.
What makes up a semantic core?
A semantic core needs to have four things:
- Documents: These are the actual bits of information you want to include on your website. For example, if you’re creating a website about flowers, your documents might consist of the following:
- Blog posts: These could be about the history of flowers, how to grow your own garden, new varieties that you have discovered, or pretty much any relevant information that you think would be useful to include on your website.
- Product pages: These could be used to show off new products that you have released, information about how these products work or their pricing, or any other relevant information that you think might interest your visitors.
- FAQs: These are essentially questions and answers about your product. They can be quite detailed and might cover issues such as how to use the product or its various features, or whether there are any known flaws. If you have numerous FAQs, you could create an FAQs page to centralize all of them.
- Charts, diagrams, and graphs: These can be used to illustrate facts, figures, or complex information in an easy to understand and straightforward manner. They can be quite eye-catching and might even attract more visitors to your site if you decide to include them.
- Citations: These are essentially the bibliographies and other citations that you use in your work. If you have published any relevant articles in journals or magazines, you could list them here. Make sure that you cite all of the sources you use in a straightforward and reputable manner.
- Metadata: This is essentially information about your documents. For example, the date on which a blog post was published, the name of the author, or a short description of the content of the post. If you have numerous blog posts, you might want to create a page to store this metadata in.
How do I build a semantic core?
You have a few options when it comes to building a semantic core. The first, and arguably the most straightforward, is to use a content management system to create and edit your website. Most CMSs have a built-in semantic web tool that can be used to create and edit structured data in a way that is accessible to both humans and machines. For example, say you are creating a website about fashion. Using a CMS, you could use the built-in semantic web tool to add categories, tags, and keywords to existing and new blog posts, along with a short description of the content. Every time you edit a post, the changes will be reflected in the underlying data. If you decide you no longer want to include a particular piece of content, you can simply delete it and update the existing data with the new information.
If you don’t have access to a CMS, you could always use a simple tool to scrape and store your content in a structured manner. There are many structured data storage facilities available online that you could use to create your semantic core. While these tools can be quite effective, make sure that you don’t overuse them because they were not made for continuous use. If you need to add a new piece of content to your website, you will have to go back and re-enter the data. This is very time-consuming and can quickly become tedious, particularly if you have a large amount of content.
Once I have my semantic core, how do I use it?
Once you have built a semantic core for your website (or blog), you can start to use it. To do this, simply enter the following address into your browser:
http://[your_site_name].com/[your_site_folder]/[your_page_name]
This will bring up your website (or blog). If you have multiple websites, make sure you enter the right URL for the site you want to access.
On the main navigation bar, you will see that there is a tab called “Explore”. This is where you can find all the content that is stored within your semantic core. To access a specific piece of content, simply click on the corresponding link (e.g., if you are accessing the blog posts about fashion, you would click on the “Fashion” link).
How can I make my content machine-readable?
If you want your content to be accessible by machines as well as humans, you need to take a few steps. The first and arguably most important step is to create a unique, machine-readable and searchable name for your website. This is particularly important if you decide to do any sort of blog search because, without a proper name, your blog posts will not be able to be located using key words.
Secondly, you need to create unique and relevant headings and corresponding sub-headings for every piece of content. For example, if you have a blog post about fashion and you decide to organize your content into different headings based on various topics (such as, “How to Dress Well”, “Dress to Impress”, “Accessorize to Impress”, etc.), you will greatly increase the likelihood that your content can be easily located by a search engine.