The rate at which Google shows its “People Also Ask” search suggestions, aka “Related Questions”, jumped by 34% this week.
According to data from Moz, Google’s Related Questions are now shown 43% of the time.
Big increase (+34%) in Related Questions ("People Also Ask") on Google SERPs last night. They're on a whopping 43% of all SERPs in the MozCast 10K data set. This number rises and falls, of course, but I've hand-checked and confirmed the increase — https://t.co/IZdZ8ZIeCx
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) July 24, 2018
To put that in a different perspective — one out of every two or three searches will now display “People Also Ask” suggestions.
Putting it yet another way — Related Questions are now the fourth most commonly displayed Google search feature out of all the features tracked by Moz.
As you can see in the image above, Related Questions are now shown almost as frequently as AdWords.
Just so we’re all on the same page, this feature is not the same as the “People Also Search For” suggestion box. Although the wording is similar, they are two distinctly different features.
This data strictly applies to the “People Also Ask” suggestion box, as seen in the example below.
What makes this feature unique is that each suggestion has a drop-down button that can be clicked on to reveal a search snippet.
Therein lies the opportunity for SEOs and site owners. With this feature now appearing more regularly, it gives content creators the opportunity to drive traffic by targeting related terms.
For example — instead of going after a highly competitive query with a new piece of content, you might want to consider other ways that question might be typed into Google.
A related question could be less competitive, giving you the opportunity to gain exposure by possibly appearing in the “People also ask” suggestions.
Since this feature usually appears near the top of the first page, ranking for a related questions suggestion could be highly valuable.
