FAQ drops and other SERP feature landscape changes
FAQ drops and other SERP feature landscape changes
SERPs change more than we think.
Google recently announced significant SERP Features changes: the removal of FAQ and How-To rich snippets. Or did they?
I dissected 5 large sites, Google’s announcement and SERP Feature trends. I found a confusing story and a lot more change than we first assumed.
❗I see 4 problems with Google’s FAQ/How-to change:
Google’s statement about FAQ/How-To is highly ambiguous
The impact on websites is unclear - some people say there is a big one, others say there is not
There is more than one thing going on in the SERPs
Why would Google remove these rich snippets now?
🤔1/ What does Google mean?
Google’s announcement to reduce the visibility of FAQ/How-To rich snippets is highly ambiguous.
The most confusing part:
As a stickler for clarity, I’m not sure if Google means
Well-known and authoritative government sites AND well-known and authoritative health sites
Well-known sites, authoritative government sites, health sites
Well-known sites, authoritative sites, government sites, health sites
As you will see in the data, most sites keep FAQ snippets on desktop but lost them on mobile, but there is no mention of that in the announcement.
🔍2/ Analyzing the impact
You can clearly see the difference between mobile vs. desktop FAQ rich snippets in Semrush for keywords Wikipedia ranks for.
Why Wikipedia? It’s one of the web’s largest sites and covers many millions of keywords.
The Semrush report shows FAQ rich snippets present in the search results for Wikipedia’s keywords.
sites
Desktop
Mobile
Unfortunately, analyzing the impact of FAQ/How-To rich snippet drops in Google Search Console is difficult, which shows the poor data quality we get about search results from Google.
5 sites in different countries and verticals show the same trends:
1/ YMYL site in AUS
4/4/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop
5/3/23: desktop FAQ rich snippets drop
8/8/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop to zero (desktop: unchanged)
8/8/23: mobile How-To rich snippets drop to 0 (desktop: unchanged)
2/ Same YMYL site in US (different ccTLD)
4/4/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop
5/3/23: desktop FAQ rich snippets drop
8/8/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop to zero (desktop: unchanged)
8/8/23: mobile How-To rich snippets drop to 0 (desktop: unchanged)
3/ Site with authority issues in CZ
14/12/23: mobile and desktop FAQ rich snippets drop
4/4/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop to zero
5/3/23: desktop FAQ rich snippets drop to zero
4/ Non-YMYL site with high authority and fast growth (US)
8/8/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop to zero (desktop: unchanged)
5/ Site with high authority (AUS)
11/23/22: mobile + desktop FAQ rich snippets drop
4/4/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop
5/3/23: desktop FAQ rich snippets drop
8/8/23: mobile FAQ rich snippets drop to zero (desktop: unchanged)
FAQ rich snippets lead to higher CTRs on mobile than desktop - what does that say about Google keeping FAQ on desktop?
🕵️3/ What else is going on in the SERPs?
The FAQ/How-To removal was by far not the only thing happening in Google’s search results, which makes the impact analysis very difficult. It shows how important it is to do thorough analysis but how hard it is with so many moving variables.
The most significant development: PAAs dropped on desktop (-40%) and mobile (-62.5%) around August 1st, impacting ranking position and click distribution. Amazon.com, espn.com, imdb.com and linkedin.com all show the same trend, but youtube.com does not (not sure what that means).
Desktop
Mobile
In some cases, the PAA position dropped (“Business name generator”):
”House plants”
In other cases, PAA appears higher (“hire react developer”):
I looked at many keywords but couldn’t find a pattern for PAA changes. However, other SERP Features also changed over the last 4 weeks:
Indented results shrunk by ~50% on August 18th for desktop results.
Video results increased by 5x on August 12th for desktop results (no change on mobile).
Related searches increased by +6.8% for desktop and +12.3% for mobile results on August 22nd.
Reviews increased slightly (+4.5%) on mobile on August 23rd (no big change on desktop).
Featured images, web stories and apps increased slightly on August 1st (mobile), knowledge panels increased slightly on August 22nd.
Are SERP Layout changes the reason all rank volatility trackers are in the red?
Apart from SERP layout changes, Google rolled two Core Updates out:
August 23rd
July 18th (unconfirmed)
It’s next to impossible to run reliable analyses in such a volatile environment.
⏱️4/ Why now?
The nearest thought is that Google is cleaning the SERPs for the arrival of AI Snapshots. I doubt that’s the main reason.
Google has been trimming FAQs over the last 12 months in steps instead of all at once, which seems much more like a test.
SERPs still show FAQ and How-To schema for desktop results. Even though the official announcement mentions holdouts to test the impact, the observed data shows all sites kept the rich snippets on desktop.
What changed in the last 5 years? If FAQ / How-To would have been less useful to Google searchers from the beginning, why did Google leave them for so long? I don’t buy that they became more “spammy”. SEOs used them to increase CTR from the start.
I initially thought PAAs were the winners of the FAQ removal, but that thesis now also seems unlikely since PAAs themselves have decreased in occurrence.
I’m not sure why now. Maybe something that’s yet to come, or Google is seeing no value in having FAQs in the SERPs.
▶️4/ Takeaways
Teams need to get really good at dissecting what’s happening in search. It’s a vital analytics skill.
SEO is unsteady - things can change quickly.
Retest wins. Things change all the time. A win that worked a year ago might not work anymore.
The data we get from Google does not accurately reflect what happens in the search results.
Where to go from here -> read my analyses of SERP Features and their impact: