Google launches Question Hub for US publishers
Google Question Hub, accessible at questionhub.withgoogle.com[1], is now open for US-based publishers[2] to sign up for. In 2018, Google launched Question Hub in regions where the company found it did not have enough content in its search index to answer searchers’ questions.
Google then started showing this box to searchers[3] last year but told us it was for COVID related queries[4], but it was much broader than COVID queries.
What is Question Hub? Google says[5] “Question Hub is a tool that enables creators to create richer content by leveraging unanswered questions. Question Hub collects these unanswered user questions and surfaces them to bloggers, writers, and content creators like you.”
It is basically a way for Google to enable searchers to tell it that the search results provided are not answering the query. Then, Google takes those questions and feeds them to publishers, who, in turn, can create content that does answer the query.
Now available to US publishers. Previously, Google launched Question Hub in 2018 for publishers in India (Hindi, English), Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia), and Nigeria (English). Google has updated its FAQs[6] to say it is now available also in the United States for English.
I tried it, and yes, I am able to access it for sites I have verified in Google Search Console.
What it looks like. Here are some screenshots of the tool, but if you want more screenshots, I posted a lot more on my personal blog[7].
Why we care. This can be an excellent way for publishers to identify content that searchers are looking for, but do not find useful search results for in Google.
In my case, I searched for Google Search-related topics that searchers could not find answers for and I was able to find a list of questions (as you see from the above screenshots) of content I can create that may solve some searchers’ questions.
Now that this is open to US publishers, many new publishers now have access to this treasure trove of information.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick[8], a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable[9], a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry[10] and he can be followed on Twitter here.
References
- ^ questionhub.withgoogle.com (questionhub.withgoogle.com)
- ^ now open for US-based publishers (www.seroundtable.com)
- ^ showing this box to searchers (searchengineland.com)
- ^ COVID related queries (searchengineland.com)
- ^ says (questionhub.withgoogle.com)
- ^ FAQs (questionhub.withgoogle.com)
- ^ my personal blog (www.seroundtable.com)
- ^ RustyBrick (www.rustybrick.com)
- ^ Search Engine Roundtable (www.seroundtable.com)
- ^ Cartoon Barry (www.barryschwartz.org)
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