Ever since Google rolled out Questions and Answers in mid-2017, I’ve been trying to get a sense of its reception by consumers and brands. Initially restricted to Android Google Maps, this fascinating feature which enables local business owners and the public to answer consumer questions made it to desktop displays this past December, adding yet another data layer to knowledge panels and local finders.
As someone who has worked in Q&A forums for the majority of my digital marketing life, I took an immediate shine to the idea of Google Questions and Answers. Here’s a chance, I thought, for consumers and brands to take meaningful communication to a whole new level, exchanging requests, advice, and help so effortlessly. Here’s an opportunity for businesses to place answers to FAQs right upfront in the SERPs, while also capturing new data about consumer needs and desires. So cool!
But, so far, we seem to be getting off to a slow start. According to a recent, wide-scale GetFiveStars study, 25% of businesses now have questions waiting for them. I decided to hone in on San Francisco and look at 20 busy industries in that city to find out not just how many questions were being asked, but also how many answers were being given, and who was doing the answering. I broke down responders into three groups: Local Guides (LGs), random users (RUs), and owners (Os). I looked at the top 10 businesses ranking in the local finder for each industry:
| Industry | Number of Questions | Number of Answers | LGs | RUs | Os |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dentists | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Plumbers | 2 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Chiropractors | 0 | - | - | - | - |
| Mexican Restaurants | 10 | 23 | 22 | 1 | - |
| Italian Restaurants | 15 | 20 | 19 | 1 | - |
| Chinese Restaurants | 16 | 53 | 49 | 4 | - |
| Car Dealers | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | - |
| Supermarkets | 7 | 27 | 24 | 3 | - |
| Clothing Stores | 4 | 1 | 1 | - | - |
| Florists | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Hotels | 44 | 142 | 114 | 28 | - |
| Real Estate Agencies | 0 | - | - | - | - |
| General Contractors | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Cell Phone Stores | 14 | 3 | 3 | - | - |
| Yoga Studios | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Banks | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Carpet Cleaning | 0 | - | - | - | - |
| Hair Salons | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Locksmiths | 1 | 0 | - | - | - |
| Jewelry Stores | 0 | - | - | - | - |
Takeaways from the case study
Here are some patterns and oddities I noticed from looking at 123 questions and 274 answers:
- There are more than twice as many answers as questions. While many questions received no answers, others received five, ten, or more.
- The Owners column is completely blank. The local businesses I looked at in San Francisco are investing zero effort in answering Google Questions and Answers.
- Local Guides are doing the majority of the answering. Of the 274 answers provided, 232 came from users who have been qualified as Local Guides by Google. Why so lopsided? I suspect the answer lies in the fact that Google sends alerts to this group of users when questions get asked, and that they can earn 3 points per answer they give. Acquiring enough points gets you perks like 3 free months of Google Play Music and a 75% discount off Google Play Movies.
Unfortunately, what I’m seeing in Google Questions and Answers is that incentivizing replies is leading to a knowledge base of questionable quality. How helpful is it when a consumer asks a hotel if they have in-room hair dryers and 10 local guides jump on the bandwagon with “yep”? Worse yet, I saw quite a few local guides replying “I don’t know,” “maybe,” and even “you should call the business and ask.” Here and there, I saw genuinely helpful answers from the Local Guides, but my overall impression didn’t leave me feeling like I’d stumbled upon a new Google resource of matchless expertise. - Some members of the public seem to be confused about the use of this feature. I noticed people using the answer portion to thank people who replied to their query, rather than simply using the thumbs up widget.
Additionally, I saw people leaving reviews/statements, instead of questions:
And with a touch of exasperated irony:
And to rant:
- Some industries are clearly generating far more questions than others. Given how people love to talk about hotels and restaurants, I wasn’t surprised to see them topping the charts in sheer volume of questions and answers. What did surprise me was not seeing more questions being asked of businesses like yoga studios, florists, and hair salons; before I actually did the searches, I might have guessed that pleasant, “chatty” places like these would be receiving lots of queries.
Big brands everywhere are leaving Google Questions and Answers unanswered
I chose San Francisco for my case study because of its general reputation for being hip to new tech, but just in case my limited focus was presenting a false picture of how local businesses are managing this feature, I did some random searches for big brands around the state and around the country.
I found questions lacking owner answers for Whole Foods, Sephora, Taco Bell, Macy’s, Denny’s, Cracker Barrel, Target, and T-Mobile. As I looked around the nation, I noted that Walmart has cumulatively garnered thousands of questions with no brand responses.
But the hands-down winner for a single location lacking official answers is Google in Mountain View. 103 questions as of my lookup and nary an owner answer in sight. Alphabet might want to consider setting a more inspiring example with their own product… unless I’m misunderstanding their vision of how Google Questions and Answers is destined to be used.
Just what is the vision for Google Questions and Answers, I wonder?
As I said at the beginning of this post, it’s early days yet to predict ultimate outcomes. Yet, the current lay of the land for this feature has left me with more questions than answers:
- Does Google actually intend questions to be answered by brands, or by the public? From what I’ve seen, owners are largely unaware of or choosing to ignore this feature many months post-launch. As of writing this, businesses are only alerted about incoming questions if they open the Google Maps app on an Android phone or tablet. There is no desktop GMB dashboard section for the feature. It’s not a recipe for wide adoption. Google has always been a fan of a crowdsourcing approach to their data, so they may not be concerned, but that doesn’t mean your business shouldn’t be.
- What are the real-time expectations for this feature? I see many users asking questions that needed fast answers, like “are you open now?” while others might support lengthier response times, as in, “I’m planning a trip and want to know what I can walk to from your hotel.” For time-sensitive queries, how does Questions and Answers fit in with Google’s actual chat feature, Google Messaging, also rolled out last summer? Does Google envision different use cases for both features? I wonder if one of the two products will win out over time, while the other gets sunsetted.
- What are the real, current risks to brands of non-management? I applauded Mike Blumenthal’s smart suggestion of companies proactively populating the feature with known FAQs and providing expert answers, and I can also see the obvious potential for reputation damage if rants or spam are ignored. That being said, my limited exploration of San Francisco has left me wondering just how many people (companies or consumers) are actually paying attention in most industries. Google Knowledge Panels and the Local Finder pop-ups are nearing an information bloat point. Do you want to book something, look at reviews, live chat, see menus, find deals, get driving directions, make a call? Websites are built with multiple pages to cover all of these possible actions. Sticking them all in a 1” box may not equal the best UX I’ve ever seen, if discovery of features is our goal.
- What is the motivation for consumers to use the product? Personally, I’d be more inclined to just pick up the phone to ask any question to which I need a fast answer. I don’t have the confidence that if I queried Whole Foods in the AM as to whether they’ve gotten in organic avocados from California, there’d be a knowledge panel answer in time for my lunch. Further, some of the questions I’ve asked have received useless answers from the public, which seems like a waste of time for all parties. Maybe if the feature picks up momentum, this will change.
- Will increasing rates of questions = increasing rates of business responses? According to the GetFiveStars study linked to above, total numbers of questions for the 1700 locations they investigated nearly doubled between November–December of 2017. From my microscopic view of San Francisco, it doesn’t appear to me that the doubling effect also happened for owner answers. Time will tell, but for now, what I’m looking for is question volume reaching such a boiling point that owners feel obligated to jump into management, as they have with reviews. We’re not there yet, but if this feature is a Google keeper, we could get there.
So what should you be doing about Google Questions and Answers?
I’m a fan of early adoption where it makes sense. Speculatively, having an active Questions and Answers presence could end up as a ranking signal. We’ve already seen it theorized that use of another Google asset, Google Posts, may impact local pack rankings. Unquestionably, leaving it up to the public to answer questions about your business with varying degrees of accuracy carries the risk of losing leads and muddying your online presence to the detriment of reputation. If a customer asks if your location has wheelchair access and an unmotivated third party says “I don’t know,” when, in fact, your business is fully ADA-compliant, your lack of an answer becomes negative customer service. Because of this, ignoring the feature isn’t really an option. And, while I wouldn’t prioritize management of Questions and Answers over traditional Google-based reviews at this point, I would suggest:
- Do a branded search today and look at your knowledge panel to see if you’ve received any questions. If so, answer them in your best style, as helpfully as possible
- Spend half an hour this week translating your company’s 5 most common FAQs into Google Questions and Answers queries and then answering them. Be sure you’re logged into your company’s Google account when you reply, so that your message will be officially stamped with the word “owner.” Whether you proactively post your FAQs while logged into your business’ account is up to you. I think it’s more transparent to do so.
- If you’re finding this part of your Knowledge Panel isn’t getting any questions, checking it once a week is likely going to be enough for the present.
- If you happen to be marketing a business that is seeing some good Questions and Answers activity, and you have the bandwidth, I’d add checking this to the daily social media rounds you make for the purpose of reputation management. I would predict that if Google determines this feature is a keeper, they’ll eventually start sending email alerts when new queries come in, as they’re now doing with reviews, which should make things easier and minimize the risk of losing a customer with an immediate need. Need to go pro on management right now due to question volume? GetFiveStars just launched an incredibly useful Google Q&A monitoring feature, included in some of their ORM software packages. Looks like a winner!
- Do be on the lookout for spam inquiries and responses, and report them if they arise.
If you’re totally new to Google Questions and Answers, this simple infographic will get you going in a flash:
For further tips on using Google Questions and Answers like a pro, I recommend following GetFiveStars’ 3-part series on this topic.
My questions, your answers
My case study is small. Can you help expand our industry’s knowledge base by answering a few questions in the comments to add to the picture of the current rate of adoption/usefulness of Google’s Questions and Answers? Please, let me know:
- Have you asked a question using this feature?
- Did you receive an answer and was it helpful?
- Who answered? The business, a random user, a Local Guide?
- Have you come across any examples of business owners doing a good job answering questions?
- What are your thoughts on Google Questions and Answers? Is it a winner? Worth your time? Any tips?
First of all, very nice article and it really make think about this now. i am a very active Local Guide so i think i can answers your question briefly.
Excellent feedback, Junaid! Thank you so much for taking the time to provide such a thorough response.
Impressive feedback my friend. And especially loved the way you describe your answer in brief.
Hi Miriam,
Great timing on this post! I manage digital marketing for a North American franchise company, Bin There Dump That. Our Conference is today and I presented on separating yourself from the competition in GMB by creating posts and Q&A.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...
For Bin There Dump That Charlotte, I asked and answered the 3 questions.
For Bin There Dump That Houston, I asked the question but left it opened to be answered and got a GREAT answer from a customer, which is certainly preferred but probably wouldn't have a great success rate elsewhere (I've yet to do this among other franchisees' GMB).
My premise is, as the consumer, if we can get all the information about companies (say if you're renting a dumpster), without having to leave Google (you see reviews, Q&A, engaging photos, etc), then it makes the life of the consumer MUCH easier.
Thoughts?
Luke.
Hi Luke,
Very cool that you presented on G Q&A! Yes, absolutely - the more quickly consumers can access information, the easier it is for them. And, it's definitely Google's goal to keep people as much within Google's various interfaces as possible. Whether having everything being controlled by Google is best for businesses is another story, but for consumers, ease of access to info is definitely a plus. Thanks so much for your comment and I hope your presentaton went well!
Great article Miriam,
To answer your questions:
1. No. Which does not make it possible for me to answer #2 and #3
4. Not yet.
5. To be honest, I never really thought about the Question and Answer feature from Google, but reading your article I realized the importance of it! It think it really can be beneficial to local businesses to make sure to answer their questions as good as possible. So I think it might be a winner.
Good luck in giving it a try, Abel, and thanks for taking the time to reply!
Agreed, great article.
I've never had to post a question as normally there is an existing thread with multiple answers/solutions to my issue.
May have answered one or two.
I think it's a useful resource!
Hi Miriam,
Great article, as usual! I'm shocked that there are zero answers from owners for all the listings you checked. That almost seems like something is broken -- like maybe owners have left some answers, but Google isn't displaying those for some reason (or they weren't displaying them when you were auditing). Or maybe it's just really zero, but that's super strange.
One thing I wanted to mention -- although there isn't a dashboard in GMB for Q&A, if you click on Settings, you can hit the email notification checkbox for Q&A. That should alert owners of any new questions asked about their biz (so they don't need to worry about consistently checking their listing).
Thanks!
Bob
Big thumbs up on your tip, Bob. Wow! I haven't seen anyone else figure this out. Amazing. Going to share your tip on Twitter.
And yes, I was pretty surprised by that big column of zeros.
Hey Miriam,
I have adopted this as a part of my ORM strategy for some clients we service. We noticed one really interesting thing...our owner's responses were being filtered almost immediately. Additionally, when we checked the answers, different ones would appear while searching from different locations.
Have you (or anyone else) noticed this?
We feel it could be Google discouraging owner's from answering, and instead showing preference to organic answers, which as you pointed out, seems to be counter-intuitive if LGs and RUs are supplying low-quality answers.
Hope to see a follow up to this article with even more data.
Wow, Zach - now that is interesting! Yours is the first mention I've seen of filtering. Anyone else seeing this? It seems really odd. Thank you for taking the time to document here what you've seen. I honestly wonder if it could be a bug, rather than a filter. Historically, Google has had very strange glitches with review counts varying widely ... I wonder if this could be something similar.
Very well put together case study. I have seen "questions" come up for a few of my clients and have tried to answer them as best as possible. It will be interesting to see what Google does with this moving forward, and if it becomes more prominent in the SERP/ Knowledge Graph.
Really solid case study Miriam, it's interesting to see the vast difference in number of answers for hotels and restaurants versus all the other types of local businesses. I predict that this will be more important to business owners as we move into the future, as I think a lot of them simply are unaware that they have questions on their profiles unfortunately.
Thanks so much, Nicholas, and I agree with you that awareness is very low as of yet. It will be interesting to see if G Q&A really takes off, or stumbles along.
Also, test whether asking a question within the answer gets increased traffic. We had phenomenal results with that
Hey Simon!
I so appreciate you coming back with your further research. Are you able to add a few more details? What, exactly, are you seeing keyword optimization impact? And, can you give an example of asking a question within an answer? Would love to hear more about both points you've made. Thank you!
Tested 7 sites with Q/A in November and December (and 1 just started in mid-January)
My test was across 7 sites:
It seems to matter if it's a timely answer or not. (Kind of like customer service)
Can you guys repeat this test? Please share results.
Hey Simon! That is awesome that you've run an initial test of this and saw a potential ranking boost, not unlike what may be happening when businesses use Google Posts. I hope others will, indeed, test this. Thank you so much for documenting and if you do a formal write-up of this case study somewhere, please let me know. I'd love to see it.
This post is really helpful, thank you.
Also tested, keyword optimization in Q&A does matter. Be sure the keyword is within the first 6 phrases (don't let it get cut off)
Answering questions is very important for users, it shows that we care about them. Whether it's a restaurant or a corporate blog, all questions must be answered as quickly as possible. Obviously, if it can not be done daily, it will be enough with half an hour a week to respond to all, depends on each company or person. Very good article, I try to answer all the comments that appear on my blog to help users and their experience is positive. I think that will help my blog to position itself positively in google, although we all know that this is a difficult and above all slow work.
Hi Salgodelacrisis,
As you point out, answering questions is simply good, considerate customer service. One of the most fascinating aspects of local search marketing for me is just how many things have now become part of customers service for local businesses: managing listings, managing reviews, and incoming features like Google Q&A. It's a great deal for any business to oversee! Good for you for doing all you can to provide good customer service.
It's interesting - I suppose it may just be that these topics are trending a lot, but I was digging into this area, read a little bit about it elsewhere, and then bang Moz gives me the kind of article to really zero in on what I want to do with the Google feature. Thank you.
Good timing! So glad you popped by, Buzzazz.
Thanks, this is very helpful and of-course this new feature from Google was brought changes to Local Business. Let's see it proves to be a positive or negative change for local businesses
Yes, I asked a question so far and a Local Guide answered it. However, a great article, Miriam!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Akash!
Yes, you told right information in this article and I use it many times when I don't know about any location or question and I also help google in understanding places "Know this place?Answer quick questions".
thanks for sharing this case study to digital marketing users.
and I want to know one more thing from you is that how to understand the criteria of "google penalization". This question came in my mind at the time of checking Backlinks of my website's competitors and I checked it on Open site explorer.
Hi Deepak,
Many thanks for your reply. Regarding link penalties, I'd recommend searching our Q&A forum here at Moz for that topic. You'll find a ton of discussions there that should help you.
Thanks for the article! Wasn't yet aware of this feature, but it is definitely something to keep an eye on in the future. I'd like to add to the knowledge base as well with my two cents:
I haven't used the feature yet, as I wasn't aware of its existence before reading your article. Therefore also haven't come across any business owners using the feature to answer questions.
Regarding the feature itself, I think it is important to spend some time on if you are a (small) business. Having several questions from potential customers and no answers won't be a good look for any company, but I highly doubt that it will become the next big thing in our social media era. Users have become accustomed to Twitter of Facebook chat if they have a question for a company, and know that they are more likely to get an answer on those platforms. Can't imagine people going through the efforts of asking questions in Google when they are not sure whether they will get a valuable reply.
Probably a good tool to have by adding some questions and answers about your business, and important to check every now and then, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it
Good morning Iris-R,
That's a very legitimate point you make about users already being habituated to using established social media to communicate with brands. Definitely competition for Google's feature. Well said!
Once Google has a good competitor, we'll see a lot of changes.
Right now it owns the market so it's a monopoly. Why would Google want to spend time and effort on making changes if it doesn't really have to :)
Wow, to be honest I wasn't aware that Questions and Answers from Google were applicable to all local businesses. Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this and I will be keeping a closer eye on my GMB for any questions moving forward!
Hi Myriam,
Thanks for the post. I have been monitoring my brand since your last post. I am a little bit nervous about populating questions and answers. Let's say I answer the Top 10 questions I am always being asked, some concerns stop me from doing it:
1. How does it look from a customer perspective? To me, it could look like the brand works too hard when no one care, or it could look like the brand wants to give good customer service.
2. Everyone that ever gave a review will get an email, which might be considered spam.
3. Google has an history of penalizing unnatural reviews, comments, links, anchor texts... They couls start to penalize unnatural Q&A, don't you think?
To be upfront, I am not trying to discredit your study, which is awesome, I am just trying to raise a few concerns of mine in order to get a better view of the functionnality!
Thanks
Hi Jean-Cristophe!
I'm delighted you've raised these points - I think they are good and intelligent ones, and they are, in fact, questions I asked myself when I first saw colleagues suggesting that brands post their own Q&A back in 2017. Please, never hesitate to question anything I've written - I enjoy discussing Local so much!
Now, in this case, there's a very significant difference between Google reviews and G Q&A. As you've rightly pointed out, Google definitely doesn't want a business to review itself. So, yes - that would be considered spam. But, in the first link in my post, I've pointed to the announcement of G Q&A in which the Google Community Manager specifically invites brands to use the feature to post their own FAQs. Here's that link again, in case you missed it on your read through my post: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/News-Upd...
So, unlike reviews, Google is specifically encouraging brands to post their own content via G Q&A. So, hopefully seeing that will alleviate your concerns that it would be Google's policy to treat such content as spam. Now, of course, Google could change this policy one day, but that would represent a total reversal and would necessitate an industry-wide change of tactics. I won't rule out that Google could change a policy (I saw them do exactly that regarding review kiosks), but for now, it's totally above-board to utilize this feature in this way.
On your #2 question, I have not seen any mention of Google emailing every person that has ever left a review of your business when a question is posted. Rather, Google soliciting input, so far as I know, is restricted to Local Guides who have interacted previously with your listing in some way. I wouldn't worry about Local Guides being put out by this, as they are playing for points in a game and want to interact with listings to up their totals.
I hope my reply is clarifying and helpful, Jean-Cristophe. Thanks for taking the time to ask good questions!
1. No
2. No
3. Local Guide
4. No
5. It really depends on the situation because if I'm looking for answers for something like "Is <restaurant name> a good place for a group dinner?" Then I would rather trust a Local Guide or web visitor over an official response. But if its something to do with pricing changes and delivery etc then I would feel more confident with a direct response from the business
I hadn't even noticed that! Your article just gave me some serious work to do for my brand. Thank you so much!
Oh, that's great, Daniel, to know this post introduced you to a new feature your brand can investigate. Good luck!
Thanks for the post. Here it comes my answerds
Thank you so much for answering, Toni!
It's up to me, or does it work exactly like Amazon's Q&A?
Well, anyway, this new functionality is interesting, now it's just a matter that people learning how to use it correctly.
Great article, Miriam, first I've read on the topic. These Q and As have just started catching my eye, and i've been wondering how important they will be.
I think this slow uptake from businesses on becoming to responsive to these question will be inevitable at first.
Regarding the low quality incentivized responses, I imagine once the Q&A section gains traction, Google wil integrate a 'was this answer helpful?' feature, similar to Amazon, to give valueable answers more exposure, and to push unhelpful answers to the bottom.
I can't answer most of your questions because I never ask questions. I occasionally get notifications about a new question about a place I've been, but I usually don't know the answer (or someone has already posted the right answer), so I don't say anything. I have noticed there are way too many "I don't know" answers, which drives me crazy. I imagine that won't go away unless/until Google does away with the LG incentivizing.
I think it's a good concept, but there are still some kinks to be ironed out. And it needs time for people to get used to it and start really using it. It speaks well of a business who keeps up with those questions!
Any idea if this could, in the future, be turned off or given more control to the business? The reason I ask is because we run a legal service and we get a lot of people asking about their claim. The issue is people who aren't staff are answering their questions. So a lot of them we had removed via reporting them. Plus we can't share a lot of the info people are even asking for in that section without breaking the law. It's causing a bit of a headache for us.
Hi There!
Unfortunately, Google doesn't have a history of letting business owners shut features off that they find problematic. I can definitely see how this would be an issue for your service. So sorry not to have a solution for you, beyond doing what you're doing.
Об этой новой возможности «вопросы и ответы» очень мало кто знает, например, я не использую эту функцию. В России она не популярна.
Статья, безусловно, полезна. Спасибо.
We'll blame the last post on Google for not translating it ;)