Google to Add Q&A, FAQ, and How-To Features in Search Results by @MattGSouthern – Info SEO

These upcoming features were announced by Google’s Gary Illyes at Google Dance Singapore.

An SEO names Akhil Agarwal alerted us about the announcement on Twitter.

#GoogleDanceSingapore New Search Features coming in @methode @rustybrick @sejournal pic.twitter.com/6dZbIQ4HiS

— Akhil Agarwal (@akhil1594) July 26, 2018

From what I can tell by looking at the photo, Google will be highlighting Q&A, FAQ, and how-to content with customized rich results.

According to the example, the rich results will appear at the top of the page, similar to how featured snippets are displayed.

These result types look like they will take up most of the screen. Given that each result type contains drop-down menus, they could very well end up being expanded across multiple screens.

The biggest unanswered question is – will Google render these rich results on its own? Or will Google rely on structured data markup implemented by the site owner?

Google recently introduced a new type of structured data for marking up tables, so it’s conceivable that Google may be planning to introduce more types of markup in the near future.

Another question is – how will this affect publishers?

The more content that’s displayed in search results, the less of a need there is for people to click-through to the actual web page.

With that in mind, if these result types are dependent on structured data, would it even be worth implementing?

If these result types are automatically generated, will publishers be able to opt out?

Those are all questions that need answering when these rich results officially go live in Google search results.