A new study released by Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting has found that Google’s Rich Answer results for search queries have increased dramatically in the first half of 2015.
Eric and SEJ founder Loren Baker discuss the study results in the exclusive interview below:
What Are Google Rich Answers?
Rich answers are the information boxes that pop up when you search something that can be easily answered without having to go to a website outside of Google’s SERPs:
In this example, I wanted to know how far it was to drive from Kansas City to Chicago. Google quickly tells me, without me having to go to a navigation page like MapQuest. Google pulled this information directly from Google Maps.
There’s several other different areas where Google provides rich answers, like cooking, science, and literature:
Obviously, these answers make it extremely easy for the user to find what they are looking for without having to sift through a lot of websites, content, or pages of results. Rich Answers are likely also tied in closely with the advances made in Google Now and voice search for mobile.
Google Rich Answers Study Results
Because of this Stone Temple Consulting’s results are enlightening, especially because they show the changes and work Google is regularly making on the strategy of Rich Answers.
Some of the findings of the study include:
- One of the biggest changes was the over 778 percent increase in rich answers give that include a title, content, and text.
- There was also an increase of 14 percent in the raw answers given by Google, with no source or link given.
- Rich Answers that included an image with the result increased 28 percent.
Overall the growth of Rich Answers shown increased almost 9% from December 2014 to July 2015:
Based on this steady growth in just seven months, we can assume that Google will continue to increase the prevalence of Rich Answers for many different types of queries.
You can read the entire study results on Stone Temple’s blog.
Image credits
Screenshots taken October 2015. Bar graph provided by Stone Temple Consulting.
