Why Google Might Show Less FAQ Rich Results

John Mueller provides reasons why Google might decide to show less FAQ rich results in the search results

In a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about FAQ rich results showing up less in the search results (SERPs). Mueller explained why Google might show less FAQ rich results in the SERPs.

FAQ Rich Results

Rich Results are a type of search result that takes up extra space in the SERPs. Publishers who add an FAQ to their page and also mark up it up with structured data become eligible for showing in Google’s search results with these FAQs.

Note how much space the rich results takes up. Each FAQ rich result can cause one or two search results to be pushed down to the second page of the SERPs.

Publisher Asks Why FAQ Rich Results are Missing


The person asking the question explained that Google stopped displaying their FAQs in the search results.

They tried troubleshooting the issue to find out what was wrong with their site.

The publisher tested the URLs in Google Search Console (GSC) as well as with the Google Rich Results tester tool.

Google’s own tools showed that there was nothing wrong with the website schema implementation.

Yet the FAQ rich results were gone from the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The publisher wanted to know why Google was no longer showing the FAQ rich results in the SERPs.

John Mueller declined to offer an explanation specific to that publisher.

But he did give a general explanation as to why FAQ pages might have gone missing in the SERPs.

Why Google is Showing Less FAQ Rich Results

According Mueller, there were so many FAQ markup pages that Google decided that they couldn’t automatically show all of them.

Although he didn’t say it, the implication is that too many FAQ rich results may have impacted the user experience, since FAQ rich results tend to shrink how many pages are shown in the SERPs. So instead of ten results, it could be that only eight or less pages are shown in the search results because of the FAQ rich results.

The other notable insight is that adding structured data necessary for a rich result does not automatically entitle that page to a rich result. This is true at least for the FAQ rich results.

John Mueller referenced showing FAQ pages where it makes sense as a possible explanation of why Google appears to be showing less of these kinds of rich results.

He didn’t indicate what kind of queries Google might consider as making sense for showing FAQ rich results.

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-less-faq-rich-results/378251/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Catch & Fix 4 Common SEO Issues Before It’s Too Late

Image
Taking a proactive stance in your SEO processes will help you catch and resolve problems before they impact your rankings. Here's how you can do it. As an SEO professional, it’s your goal – and responsibility – to ensure that you can do what’s necessary to keep things running smoothly and stay up-to-date with your website’s content.  On September 23, I moderated a sponsored Search Engine Journal webinar presented by Steven van Vessum, VP of Community at ContentKing . He shared how to finally take a proactive stance in your SEO processes as you catch (and resolve!) problems before they impact your rankings. Search engines never sleep. They are continuously crawling your site to update their indexes. SEO mistakes can happen anytime.  You need to fix them before they impact your rankings and bottom line. About 80% of SEO issues go unnoticed for at least four weeks .  An average SEO issue can cost up to $75,000 in lost revenue. But with the right tooling and processes, you c...
Read more

Google On Link Algorithms and How Long for Links to Work

Image
In a Webmaster Central hangout , Google’s John Mueller answered a question about when link algorithms are updated and also revealed how long it takes for links to take effect in Google. The original question was concerned with when links take effect and if it was tied to core ranking algorithms. The question was a long one, below is the relevant part of it:  “I was wondering about when these big announced core updates happen, are there some parts of the linking algorithm updated as well?” John Mueller began his answer by describing what the core algorithm is and how it’s made up of a lot of algorithms, not just one giant core algorithm. This is what Mueller said: “So in general, a core algorithm update, the way that we have it defined is somewhat vague. Because it’s not that we have this one piece of machinery that is the core algorithm and when we change one screw there, then that’s a core algorithm update.” Next, Mueller described what actually happens during a core algorithm up...
Read more

Subdomain vs. Subfolder: What Best Fits Your SEO Needs?

Subdomains and subfolders each offer different features and SEO benefits for your website. But, the age old question between search engine optimizers is which one is better for SEO rankings? Subdomains or subfolders? The answer often depends on the needs of your site, but it is also helpful to have a thorough understanding of each. Let’s break down the definitions of subdomains and subfolders for you and identify the advantages and disadvantages of each distinction. What Is a Subdomain? A subdomain is the section of a domain that is listed before the main domain name and the extension. For example, in the URL blog.bluleadz.com, blog is the subdomain. To begin understanding subdomains, you must understand the structure of a URL. A protocol, such as “https:” is a set of rules that allows data to be sent as requests to the web server. The domain, “bluleadz.com,” is the URL to the website’s main page.  Domains also have two parts, the top level domain (.com, .gov, .net, etc.) and the...
Read more