Google has clarified how performance data, such as clicks, impressions, and rankings, is measured for pages in the “People Also Ask” section of Search Console.
The topic was discussed in a recent Google Search Central SEO office hour hangout.
A guy named Aakash Singh joined the livestream to ask Google Search Console how to track data for pages that appeared in the “People also ask” segment.
Google Search Advocate John Mueller answers this question, explaining how Search Console tracks performance data for pages when URLs appear in People Asked Too.
Here’s how performance data is tracked in your Search Console reports if you’re ranking in one of the search snippets.
Measure People Ask performance data in Search Console
Mueller first stated that impressions were counted in his response all URLs displayed in Google Search, including snippets for “people ask too”.
When a searcher clicks on the “People also ask” suggestion, a link to a webpage appears below, and that webpage is counted as an impression.
“The short answer is that whenever a URL shows up in search results, we try to show it in Search Console.
So for the “people also ask” section, I think if you expand it, then it shows a link to your site with that question and snippets there. This means that every time someone expands the “People also ask” section and sees your site’s URL, that counts as an impression.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the first in “people also ask” or if people click on 15 different ones and then yours pops up. This will be considered an impression. “
Mueller went on to say that when a link to a page is clicked, the click is counted.
When measuring ranking position, Search Console tracks where the “People Also Asked” section appears in a particular set of search results.
For example, if it appears in second place, then all URLs that appear in the “People also ask” box are counted as second.
Mueller continued:
“Also, when a click happens, it counts as a click. I think the ranking, the position, is based on the overall position of that set of elements. At least, as far as I know, that doesn’t count in the ‘people also ask’ part, you What is the position?”
URLs can appear twice in the same SERP
Singer followed up by asking Mueller whether pages could appear in regular organic search result sets at the same time and “People also ask.”
Mueller said rankings in two places in the same SERP are possible.
When this happens, Search Console calculates the top position.
“Of course. The only caveat – the Search Console performance report shows the ranking of the top items. So if different URLs are listed multiple times in the search results page, it tracks the position of the first one.”
Listen to the full discussion in the video below:
Featured image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, March 2022.
