Answer
Jul 18, 2024 - 11:12 AM
There was a time when Google would treat and display content with FAQ schema differently in their results, where they would show the FAQ content special in results....but those days are over where Google took those results where some available FAQs would display as part of the result and they're not showing anymore. The performance of Q&A content generated and published through Answerbase has never been dependent upon the FAQ schema (or even used it)...and our customers who are answering questions well have seen consistent organic performance lifts through all of Google's updates as they focus on rewarding "people-first content" (we'll dig into that below)...but this question is asked commonly enough that it's useful to clarify what Google has done with FAQ schema.
In the below image you'll see how Google used to display FAQ content vs how a result will show up now which is displayed on the right.
Google announced how they were changing this display in 2023, the link to the announcement is here:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/08/howto-faq-changes
Note within that announcement Google said the following:
"Going forward, FAQ (from FAQPage structured data) rich results will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly. Sites may automatically be considered for this treatment depending on their eligibility. While you can drop this structured data from your site, there's no need to proactively remove it. Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search."
So....there is no benefit to having Q&A marked up with FAQ schema and Google doesn't treat it any differently. It doesn't hurt to have, but doesn't impact your visibility unless you're a well-known authoritative government or health website.
Answerbase's Q&A Content in Search Results
With that said, Q&A content generated through Answerbase does perform on Google and continues to thrive through their updates as they reward sites and pages that have "people-first helpful content". Answerbase connects directly with Google and can understand which of the questions you've answered from your customers have enough search volume to warrant their own landing pages. We also make sure that content is published and distributed in a way that shows in Organic Search Results...see here as an example:
The Q&A content increases visibility in a variety of results including "people also asked", thumbnails, images, etc...we encourage you to see a screenshot of many of those types of organic results where Q&A content thrives in this post (click this link).
Those Q&A landing pages have notably thrived as Google distributed the "Helpful Content System" into it's core ranking systems (part of Google's March 2024 core updates)....where now the helpfulness of your content and pages are critical to how Google judges your pages and your site. The core ranking systems are primarily designed to judge each individual page, but there are some site-wide signals that also are taken into account.
With that update, see how Answerbase customer's Q&A landing pages have performed over the 4 month period before and after that update...see chart here:
So, while Google has "demoted" the way it displays content with FAQ schema....good/quality Q&A content that actually addresses the questions of customers continues to thrive.
In the below image you'll see how Google used to display FAQ content vs how a result will show up now which is displayed on the right.
Google announced how they were changing this display in 2023, the link to the announcement is here:
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/08/howto-faq-changes
Note within that announcement Google said the following:
"Going forward, FAQ (from FAQPage structured data) rich results will only be shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer be shown regularly. Sites may automatically be considered for this treatment depending on their eligibility. While you can drop this structured data from your site, there's no need to proactively remove it. Structured data that's not being used does not cause problems for Search, but also has no visible effects in Google Search."
So....there is no benefit to having Q&A marked up with FAQ schema and Google doesn't treat it any differently. It doesn't hurt to have, but doesn't impact your visibility unless you're a well-known authoritative government or health website.
Answerbase's Q&A Content in Search Results
With that said, Q&A content generated through Answerbase does perform on Google and continues to thrive through their updates as they reward sites and pages that have "people-first helpful content". Answerbase connects directly with Google and can understand which of the questions you've answered from your customers have enough search volume to warrant their own landing pages. We also make sure that content is published and distributed in a way that shows in Organic Search Results...see here as an example:
The Q&A content increases visibility in a variety of results including "people also asked", thumbnails, images, etc...we encourage you to see a screenshot of many of those types of organic results where Q&A content thrives in this post (click this link).
Those Q&A landing pages have notably thrived as Google distributed the "Helpful Content System" into it's core ranking systems (part of Google's March 2024 core updates)....where now the helpfulness of your content and pages are critical to how Google judges your pages and your site. The core ranking systems are primarily designed to judge each individual page, but there are some site-wide signals that also are taken into account.
With that update, see how Answerbase customer's Q&A landing pages have performed over the 4 month period before and after that update...see chart here:
So, while Google has "demoted" the way it displays content with FAQ schema....good/quality Q&A content that actually addresses the questions of customers continues to thrive.
