Google has expanded the Google Question Hub feature, where Google shows a question box in the search results. Google told me they are piloting this now in the US specifically for COVID-19 queries where Google's search results may not have content to satisfy the query.
This is a feature that is live in India, Indonesia, or Nigeria but is now being tested in other regions, specifically for some COVID-19 queries. You may have seen this box, this is what it looks like:
We covered this being tested in 2018 but it is live in India, Indonesia, and Nigeria because Google said there are content gaps across those languages and searcher queries.
Now with COVID-19, even in the US, Google feels there are content gaps in the search results.
This is a limited pilot, meaning, only select publishers have access to answer these questions. They would access it in Google Search Console, if they had access to see these questions. This is what that interface may look like?
Here is the official landing page for the Question Hub questionhub.withgoogle.com.
The reason I asked Google this was because in the past 24-hours, I had numerous people ask me if this is new, which is weird:
Is this new ? @brodieseo @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/L5YbjS2Bnk
— Januka Harshan (@JanukaHW) April 20, 2020
@rustybrick came across this submit your question box at the end of the #serp? On #Google. pic.twitter.com/PtJGRvAZLh
— Kamran Badal (@KamranBadal) April 21, 2020
New or new to me? pic.twitter.com/hnRQEx0wjs
— Dan Leibson (@DanLeibson) April 21, 2020
It is not new, but new for COVID-19 searches in the US.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
