Answer
Dec 19, 2024 - 02:44 PM
As you starting answering questions within Answerbase, that content is fed to Google for them to consider indexing....and if you're creating good content that is worthy of indexing much of that content will get indexed. The Q&A content has never been more valuable as Google and other search engines are crawling the digital universe to get their hands on every new/unique/great piece of content they can so they have the data to answer any question in the world. This is why Answerbase's customers have seen DRAMATIC lift in impressions and traffic to their content generated through Answerbase as you can see here:
But....as your start posting content....and start digesting what it's doing, the question comes up "Why isn't all of my Q&A content being indexed?". It's a reasonable question, so let's dig into what we see here so you're aware of how you're doing.
Where to Find Indexing Reports
In Google Search Console you can gain insights into how your pages are being indexed under "Indexing > Pages" as you see here:
By default it will show the indexing of all known pages. When you're in that section...you'll see under the "Page Indexing" title that you'll have a dropdown where you can select a specific sitemap to check the indexing on...see here:
If you have an Answerbase account and have submitted your Q&A sitemap into Google Search Console....you'll see your Q&A sitemap and then you'll see the indexing of the Q&A pages themselves.
What to Expect from Q&A
We'll give you some examples here to understand what you may expect, we're going to go through several examples of customers who have done nothing more than just to ensure they are answering their customers quesetions as they ask them on product pages. Their priority is to service their customers with great content...and product SEO comes naturally off of that.
See one example here:
As you can see there about 90% of their Q&A pages are getting indexed....which is a GREAT result. If you're creating great Q&A content....Google should recognize it as being valuable to the world and want to index it. For the customer above....Q&A is about 20% of their organic traffic.
Not all customers get 90% though....so let's look at another example. Now, this customer....they also get about 20% of their organic traffic from Q&A but you'll see that only about 50% of their Q&A's are being indexed. See here:
That is specific to their product Q&A content....and only 50% of their Q&A's have gotten indexed. So...much lower percentage than the first example, but still it's 20% of their organic traffic.
Now...let's look at an example where this customer has 48% of their organic traffic coming from their Q&A content....but see their Q&A indexing here:
As you can see...only 33% of their Q&A content is being indexed....but their Q&A accounts for 48% of their overall traffic.
Here's a couple more examples of Q&A indexing just for good measure and giving you a better sample size of what customers are seeing:
and another:
Our perspective on this is that you should simply be answering your customer's questions as best as you can (note, great doesn't mean long...it means a great answer/experience for a real person) and if you're going to seed your Answerbase then seed it with great and insightful information that demonstrates that you know what you're talking about on the topic (Google's EEAT, E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). If you're doing that well and posting content that satisfies your customers....that is exactly what Google is looking to find and a percentage of that should be indexed. As far as what percentage of that is indexed....it probably has to do with Google's perception of how valuable your answers are and perhaps if the internet is already drown out with the answer you've provided....where you've really not added anything new to the world through your answer. Create "information gain" to your customers and therefor to the world...and companies who have done that have been rewarded handsomely in these latest updates.
But....as your start posting content....and start digesting what it's doing, the question comes up "Why isn't all of my Q&A content being indexed?". It's a reasonable question, so let's dig into what we see here so you're aware of how you're doing.
Where to Find Indexing Reports
In Google Search Console you can gain insights into how your pages are being indexed under "Indexing > Pages" as you see here:
By default it will show the indexing of all known pages. When you're in that section...you'll see under the "Page Indexing" title that you'll have a dropdown where you can select a specific sitemap to check the indexing on...see here:
If you have an Answerbase account and have submitted your Q&A sitemap into Google Search Console....you'll see your Q&A sitemap and then you'll see the indexing of the Q&A pages themselves.
What to Expect from Q&A
We'll give you some examples here to understand what you may expect, we're going to go through several examples of customers who have done nothing more than just to ensure they are answering their customers quesetions as they ask them on product pages. Their priority is to service their customers with great content...and product SEO comes naturally off of that.
See one example here:
As you can see there about 90% of their Q&A pages are getting indexed....which is a GREAT result. If you're creating great Q&A content....Google should recognize it as being valuable to the world and want to index it. For the customer above....Q&A is about 20% of their organic traffic.
Not all customers get 90% though....so let's look at another example. Now, this customer....they also get about 20% of their organic traffic from Q&A but you'll see that only about 50% of their Q&A's are being indexed. See here:
That is specific to their product Q&A content....and only 50% of their Q&A's have gotten indexed. So...much lower percentage than the first example, but still it's 20% of their organic traffic.
Now...let's look at an example where this customer has 48% of their organic traffic coming from their Q&A content....but see their Q&A indexing here:
As you can see...only 33% of their Q&A content is being indexed....but their Q&A accounts for 48% of their overall traffic.
Here's a couple more examples of Q&A indexing just for good measure and giving you a better sample size of what customers are seeing:
and another:
Our perspective on this is that you should simply be answering your customer's questions as best as you can (note, great doesn't mean long...it means a great answer/experience for a real person) and if you're going to seed your Answerbase then seed it with great and insightful information that demonstrates that you know what you're talking about on the topic (Google's EEAT, E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). If you're doing that well and posting content that satisfies your customers....that is exactly what Google is looking to find and a percentage of that should be indexed. As far as what percentage of that is indexed....it probably has to do with Google's perception of how valuable your answers are and perhaps if the internet is already drown out with the answer you've provided....where you've really not added anything new to the world through your answer. Create "information gain" to your customers and therefor to the world...and companies who have done that have been rewarded handsomely in these latest updates.
