Google’s “People Also Ask” Showing for Highly Competitive Keywords

Google’s new “People Also Ask” that is being tested has now started showing up for highly competitive keyword phrases… with the suggestions displaying commercial sites related to the keyword search.

Google began testing “People Also Ask” last week, however at the time it seemed to only display for non-commercial queries.

In this case, a search for “payday loans”, a high value keyword phrase – and one that sees quite a bit of spam – is displaying a “People also ask” box in the Google search results.

In this example, the QuickQuid site also showed up in the organic search results for that search query, two spots below the answer box.  The second “People also ask”question ironically was for a page on the FTC site.

SEOs tend to get a bit squeamish whenever they see answer boxes showing up in a highly competitive search query – unless it happens to be the themselves in one of these answer boxes.  But it can be a lot harder to compete when a competitor’s site gets highlighted, as many people feel it is unfair that commercial sites show up in answer box results, especially for commercial search terms.

This isn’t the first time that Google is displaying things such as answer boxes for highly competitive keyword phrases – and ones that tend to be heavily spammed.   We spotted an answer box showing up for “cheap home insurance” that displayed a commercial result in the box.

H/T to Dan Barker who spotted the commercial “People also ask” boxes.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post

Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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