Semantics is the study of the meaning of words or phrases, given the context in which they are written. Semantics provide the possibility of differentiating search results when words are present but used in a different context (eg orange the colour and Orange the telecoms company). Semantics also provide the possibility of including search results that do not use the exact words specified in the search but have the same meaning (or a subset of meaning). For instance, in searching for references to America, you would wish to see references to USA and (as a subset), California.
