GovGraph (GOV.UK Knowledge Graph)

The GOV.UK Knowledge Graph, also known as GovGraph, is a collection of BigQuery tables containing information about GOV.UK content.

The tables can be used for analytical work such as:

finding current GOV.UK content
analysing content by document type, publishing application or language
examining relationships between content items
identifying redirects, withdrawn content and content that is no longer available
examining previous editions of content

Source of the data

Most GovGraph content data comes from the GOV.UK Publishing API. The Publishing API represents content using three related concepts:

a content item is a piece of GOV.UK content and has a content_id
a document is a content item in a particular locale
an edition is a version of a document

A content item can therefore have more than one document, for example an English document and a Welsh document. A document can have multiple editions recording how it has changed over time.

Some GovGraph tables contain data copied from source systems. Others are derived tables designed to make common analytical tasks easier.

Read how to query the Knowledge Graph for more information about the data model.

Access

Access to the BigQuery dataset is limited to GDS staff.

For access, contact the #data-engineering community.

Location

The data is located in BigQuery in the govuk-knowledge-graph project.

Tables use fully qualified names in this format:

govuk-knowledge-graph.dataset_name.table_name

For example: govuk-knowledge-graph.public.publishing_api_editions_current

Choose a table

Different GovGraph tables represent GOV.UK content at different levels.

Table	What it contains	Suitable for
`search.page`	An analysis-ready view of GOV.UK pages used by GovSearch	Most analysis requiring one row per searchable GOV.UK page
`public.publishing_api_editions_current`	The current non-draft, publicly available edition of each document	Current Publishing API content and lower-level content metadata
`publishing_api.editions`	Editions held in the Publishing API source data	Content history and previous versions
`public.publishing_api_links_current`	Relationships involving current editions	Relationships between content items, including publishing organisations and taxonomy
`public.publishing_api_unpublishings_current`	Relevant unpublishing records for current content	Redirect, gone and withdrawal analysis

This list is not exhaustive.

Read how to use the Knowledge Graph data for more information on how to use the tables.

Important concepts

A document is not always a web page

A GovGraph document may:

represent content that has its own GOV.UK URL
be embedded in another item of content
contain several chapters or parts displayed at different URLs
represent a translation of a content item

This means that a row in a GovGraph table does not always correspond to one URL displayed in a browser.

Current and historical data

Tables whose names end in _current are intended to represent the current state of relevant content.

Use the source tables in the publishing_api dataset if you need previous editions or want to analyse how content has changed over time.

JSON data

Some tables contain a details field. This is a JSON object whose structure varies according to the content schema.

Querying large JSON fields can use more BigQuery processing than selecting standard columns. Select only the fields required for your analysis.

Set-up

The GovGraph Google Cloud Projects also include infrastructure for the GovSearch app, which uses data from GovGraph.

Read the documentation in the GitHub repository.

Table schemas

Tables

The schemas of some of the more heavily used Knowledge Graph tables are detailed below.

search.page

The govuk-knowledge-graph.search.page table includes everything that is in GovSearch.

In this table, different sections or chapters of a content item are kept as separate ‘pages’, instead of being grouped as content items under the contentId. ‘Gone’ and ‘redirect’ pages are excluded from this table.

field name	mode	type	description	notes
url	NULLABLE	STRING	URL of a page	Includes hostname and protocol, e.g. `https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-pay-commission-research-2024`
documentType	REQUIRED	STRING	The kind of thing that a page is about
contentId	REQUIRED	STRING	The ID of the content item of a page	Multiple URLs can have the same contentId
locale	REQUIRED	STRING	The ISO 639-1 two-letter code of the language of an edition on GOV.UK
publishing_app	REQUIRED	STRING	The application that published a content item on GOV.UK
first_published_at	NULLABLE	TIMESTAMP	The date that a page was first published. Automatically determined by the publishing-api, unless overridden by the publishing application.
public_updated_at	NULLABLE	TIMESTAMP	When a page was last significantly changed (a major update). Shown to users. Automatically determined by the publishing-api, unless overridden by the publishing application.
publisher_updated_at	NULLABLE	TIMESTAMP	When a page was last changed in the Publisher app. More meaningful than ‘updated_at’ in the Publishing API and Content API, which is polluted by editions that are created for techy reasons rather than editing reasons, and editors of mainstream pages tend not to use ‘public_updated_at’.
withdrawn_at	NULLABLE	TIMESTAMP	The date the page was withdrawn.
withdrawn_explanation	NULLABLE	STRING	The explanation for withdrawing a page
page_views	NULLABLE	INTEGER	Number of page views from GA4 over 7 recent days
title	NULLABLE	STRING	The title of a page
description	NULLABLE	STRING	Description of a page
text	NULLABLE	STRING	The content of the page as plain text extracted from the HTML	Null for certain document types, such as contact pages, due to the way the content is generated
taxons	REPEATED	STRING	Array of titles of taxons that the page is tagged to, and their ancestors
primary_organisation	NULLABLE	STRING	Title of the primary organisation that published the page
organisations	REPEATED	STRING	Array of titles of organisations that published the page
people	REPEATED	STRING	Array of names of people who are associated with the page
organisations_ancestry	REPEATED	STRING	Array of titles of organisations (and any parent organisations) that published the page
hyperlinks	REPEATED	RECORD	Array of hyperlinks from the body of the page
phone_numbers	REPEATED	STRING	Array of phone numbers from the body and metadata of the page
is_political	NULLABLE	BOOLEAN	Indicator of whether the page is political. Pages where this is true, and that were published by a previous government, are displayed in ‘history mode’ with a prominent message drawing attention to the fact.
government	NULLABLE	STRING	Title of the government that published the page, if the page is political.
hyperlinks.link_url		STRING	Link URL
hyperlinks.link_type		STRING	Type of link

public.publishing_api_editions_current

This table contains the most recent non-draft edition of each document that is publicly available through the GOV.UK website and in the Content API. It is derived primarily from publishing_api.editions and is enriched with:

content_id and locale from publishing_api.documents
unpublishing_type from publishing_api.unpublishings

Some fields are removed or modified for redirect and gone items.

Field name	Type	Mode	Description
content_id	STRING	NULLABLE	The unique identifier of the content item. A content item may have one document for each locale, with each document having one or more editions.
locale	STRING	NULLABLE	The locale of the document, such as ‘en’ for English or ‘cy’ for Welsh. Together, content_id and locale identify a document.
id	INTEGER	NULLABLE	The internal identifier assigned to this edition by the Publishing API.
title	STRING	NULLABLE	The title of the content item. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table.
public_updated_at	TIMESTAMP	NULLABLE	Date and time when the content item was last significantly changed by a major update. It is automatically determined by the Publishing API unless overridden by the publishing application.
publishing_app	STRING	NULLABLE	The publishing application that supplied the content item to the Publishing API, recorded as the application’s hostname.
rendering_app	STRING	NULLABLE	The hostname of the frontend application that renders the content item. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table.
update_type	STRING	NULLABLE	Classification of the update to the edition. Accepted Publishing API values are ‘major’, ‘minor’ and ‘republish’. A major update changes public_updated_at when the edition is published and may include a change note. A republish may result from technical or bulk processing rather than an editorial change to the content.
phase	STRING	NULLABLE	The phase assigned to the edition. Accepted Publishing API values are alpha, beta and live.
analytics_identifier	STRING	NULLABLE	Identifier used to track the content item in analytics software. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table
updated_at	TIMESTAMP	NULLABLE	Date and time when this edition was last updated in the Publishing API data. This field is used to select the most recent edition for each document. An update may reflect technical processing or republishing rather than an editorial change.
document_type	STRING	NULLABLE	The type of content represented by this edition, used to distinguish content that may share the same schema. If the ‘unpublishing_type’ field is ‘redirect’ or ‘gone’, the value will be replaced by the unpublishing type.
schema_name	STRING	NULLABLE	Name of the content schema e.g. ‘publication’, ‘news_article’, ‘speech’. If the ‘unpublishing_type’ field is ‘redirect’ or ‘gone’, the value will be replaced by the unpublishing type.
first_published_at	TIMESTAMP	NULLABLE	Date and time recorded as the first publication of the content item. It is automatically determined by the Publishing API unless a value is supplied by the publishing application. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table.
base_path	STRING	NULLABLE	The path used by the content item on GOV.UK, excluding the hostname, protocol and query string.
document_id	INTEGER	NULLABLE	The internal identifier assigned by the Publishing API to the document to which this edition belongs. Multiple editions of the same document share the same document_id.
description	STRING	NULLABLE	A description of the content item. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table.
published_at	TIMESTAMP	NULLABLE	Date and time associated with the publication of this edition. This is an edition-level timestamp and may differ from first_published_at, public_updated_at and updated_at.
details	JSON	NULLABLE	JSON object containing data specific to the content item’s document_type. Its structure varies according to the applicable content schema. Set to NULL for ‘redirect’ and ‘gone’ items in this table.
routes	JSON	NULLABLE	Paths and route types used to make the content item available through GOV.UK.
redirects	JSON	NULLABLE	Redirect destination information associated with an unpublished content item.
unpublishing_type	STRING	NULLABLE	Type of unpublishing action associated with the edition, such as ‘withdrawal’, ‘redirect’ or ‘gone’. A NULL value indicates that no matching unpublishing record was found.

Further schemas will be added for commonly used tables.

Technical documentation

For more technical information, see:

This page was last reviewed on 3 September 2026. It needs to be reviewed again on 3 March 2028 by the page owner #insights-and-analytics-alerts .