For many brands and businesses, Google shows a “People Also Search For” carousel that appears at the bottom of the search results.  And for many of these, the businesses or brands that Google selects to show in the carousel are direct competitors.  But how does Google select which ones are related to the business to show?

The question came up at SMX West last week, and Gary Illyes said that every entity – the company/brand/person/etc – shown in the knowledge panel is assigned a category,

“In the knowledge graph, every entity has a rough category,” said Illyes.  “And I am assuming we are using that rough category to provide that information.”

He did stress that he wasn’t 100% sure.  But based on how closely related most businesses tend to be, it seems fairly likely that this is indeed the way Google selects it.