Advances in Databases

The core idea of the Semantic Web is to make information accessible to human and software agents on a semantic basis. Hence, web sites may feed directly from the Semantic Web exploiting the underlying structures for human and machine access. We have developed a generic approach for developing semantic portals, viz. SEAL (SEmantic portAL), that exploits semantics for providing and accessing information at a portal as well as constructing and maintaining the portal. In this paper, we discuss the role that semantic structures make for establishing communication between different agents in general. We elaborate on a number of intelligent means that make semantic web sites accessible from the outside, viz. semantics-based browsing, semantic querying and querying with semantic similarity, and machine access to semantic information at a semantic portal. As a case study we refer to the AIFB web site — a place that is increasingly driven by Semantic Web technologies.