Google has made updates to their Q&A Page content guidelines with details of do’s and don’ts. Google has earlier added the guidelines in December 2018 for its new QA page schema. Here is a comparison between the old and new updates-
Old Content Guidelines
- Make use of the QAPage markup only if information on your page is in a QA format where one question is followed by responses to it.
- Avoid using the QAPage markup for FAQ pages which have multiple questions on each page. QAPage markup is meant for pages with a single question with answers.
- Ensure that each question and answer include its entire text.
- Don’t utilize QAPage markup for promotional purposes.
- Answer markup for answers to a query instead of comments to a question or its replies. Non-answer comments shouldn’t be marked as an answer.
- QA content might not be shown as a rich content if it includes contents which are sexually explicit, graphically violent, hate or harassing language or promotion of dangerous or illegal activities.
New Guidelines
- Only utilize a QAPage markup if the information on your page is in question and answer format, with one question followed by its replies.
- A product support page in which users are able to submit their replies to a question. Avoid using QAPage markup for content which has just one answer for a question and users are no enabled to add alternative replies. Some examples are given below-
Cases of valid use
- A forum page in which users can submit replies to a single question.
- A product support page in which users can submit replies to a single question.
Cases of invalid use
- An FAQ page written by the website itself and users cannot submit alternative replies
- A product page in which users can submit multiple questions and answers on a single page.
- A blog post which answers a query.
- A how-to guide which answers a query.
- An essay which answers a query.
- Avoid using QAPage markup for advertising purposes.
- Don’t utilize QAPage markup for FAQ pages or pages that have multiple questions in each page. QAPage markup is for pages that have a single question and its replies.
- Avoid applying QAPage markup to all pages on a website if all content isn’t eligible. For instance, a lot of replies can be posted on a forum which are individually suitable for markup. But if the forum has pages which are not questions, they are not eligible.
- Ensure that each query and answer include its entire text.
- Answer markup is meant for answers to a query, not for comments to a query or other replies.
- QA content might not be shown as rich content if it includes contents of the following types-promotion of dangerous or illegal activities, hate or harassing language, sexually explicit or graphically violent.
