What Is The Semantic Web?

Essentially, the semantic web marks a move from a global web of human readable documents (web pages) to a global web of machine readable documents; so that machines can automatically interpret the meaning of data on the web; what to do with it, and how to represent it.

This site exists to give you the tools, and hte know-how, to start using the semantic web yourself in your everyday tasks. We have preparaed a number of easy to digest, progressive tutorials for you to read in your own time and at your own page.

Semantic Web Basics Why use a semantic web and how is it any different from the web of today? This article introduces the key differences – and their benefits.

Introducing Graph Data Discusses the way in which the semantic web stores its data; and how it differs from the more well known models used today. To first understand the semantic web, you must understand how it stores data.

Introducing RDF Provides an initial insight into RDF format; the format in which the semantic web defines its models of data.

Semantic Modeling Introduces the key benefits of storing, and using, a semantic database; whether online or offline. Once you understand the technologies behind the semantic web, you are ready to put it to use and see the advantages over traditional approaches.

Introducing RDFS & OWL Answers the question ‘how does the semantic web store semantics in its data?’. We give a brief overview of the syntax, with examples.

Querying Semantic Data Gives an overview of the syntax used to search and query semantic data using SPARQL; the semantic web’s equivalent of SQL.

Structured Data Primer

The semantic web is not just confined to publishing raw data – you can use semantic web standards to embed data in your existing web pages too. We show you how with our new Structured Data tutorials.

Introduction To Structured Data What is structured data and what is it used for? How is it of interest to the search engines? This tutorial introduces the basics of structured data on web pages.

Introduction To Schema.org How is structured data expressed? One of the mainstream vocabularies, developed by the major search engines, is Schema.org. We introduce the basics of schema.org in this tutorial using the HTML embeddable microdata syntax.

Introduction To JSON-LD Whilst microdata is a popular way of expressing structured data within web pages, JSON-LD is an increasingly popular alternative. We compare and contrasts the two syntaxes using schema.org vocabulary.

Knowledge Vaults Once data has been published using structured data standards, how is it queried and consumed by software? One source of structured data from across the web is the knowledge vault or knowledge graph – a new, semantically enriched way of searching for facts and information on the web.