Google is testing a new search feature for desktop users, displaying “People also ask” with additional search results displayed.
The box appears after the top one or two organic search results. Google then displays a box underneath showing “People also ask” with a set of additional search queries in the form of a question, that people also ask for the search query.
However, some of the links to “people also ask” are a bit “unintentionally hilarious”, as Dan Barker notes.
Here is another version.
When you click on one of the results in the “people also ask” box, this displays:
I think this could be a pretty useful feature if the “people also ask” is tightened up a bit to be more useful. They are not picking up the data from Google’s autocomplete feature, as those results were much more on target with the two search queries.
It seems to be a very small group of people Google is running with this test. However, if Google discovers people are actually using them, we might see them pop up more in the future.
Added: This is now showing up for some very competitive and commercial terms ie. “payday loans.”
H/T to Dan Barker who spotted the test.
Jennifer Slegg
Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)
- Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations - December 6, 2019
- Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites - September 13, 2019
- Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags - September 10, 2019
- Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials - May 17, 2019
- Google Local Service Ads Display Pricing Estimates for Specific Locations - August 31, 2018
[…] began testing “People Also Ask” last week, however at the time it seemed to only display for non-commercial […]