People Also Ask (PAA) Boxes

What is a People Also Ask (PAA) box?

People Also Ask boxes, often shortened to PAA boxes, are accordion-style question groups that appear in Google search results, typically between positions two and four in organic results, though their placement varies by query. Each box shows a question, and clicking it expands to reveal a short answer. That answer was historically extracted from an indexed page and linked to its source; Google now writes the large majority of them with its own AI instead. Clicking one answer generates new related questions in real time, meaning the box can expand indefinitely.

How do PAA boxes work?

Google populates PAA boxes algorithmically. Where an answer is drawn from indexed content, the mechanism is the same as a featured snippet, which Google’s documentation says can appear “within a related questions group (also known as ‘People Also Ask’)”: the answer is a passage from the source page, and the page does not need to rank first for the PAA query. Google says only that its systems determine whether a page “would make a good featured snippet” and that you cannot mark one yourself.¹ On the visible surface, the passage shown is usually the paragraph or list directly below a heading matching the question, which is observation rather than anything Google has documented. That extraction path now accounts for a small minority of answers, for the reason covered below.

PAA boxes are present in around half of Google SERPs (Semrush’s Sensor measured 51.85% in August 2024), making them one of the most common SERP features.²

Real-time expansion is a distinctive behaviour. When a user clicks to reveal an answer, Google generates two to four new related questions tailored to the topic path the user is following. Click a question about “how to reduce bounce rate” and new questions about engagement metrics, page speed, and UX appear. The PAA surface can therefore draw content from deep in the long tail, well beyond the head-term questions initially shown.

Do AI Overviews appear in PAA boxes?

Yes, and in the large majority of boxes. Google has been answering PAA questions with its own AI-generated text rather than extracting the answer from an indexed page since November 2024, and the share has grown steeply. In July 2025, an AlsoAsked analysis of roughly 8.4 million live English-language PAAs found 12.6% of answers were AI-generated rather than website-cited.³ By October 2025 the same panel reported 38%, up from 17.8% earlier that year.⁴⁵ In the first week of September 2026 it reported 97%, from a sample of 19.2 million live English-language PAAs.⁶

Two things qualify that last figure. It comes from AlsoAsked’s own panel rather than from Google, which has documented none of this; a second tool, Allintitle, reached a similar conclusion from a different measurement, finding that the Google request path which used to return an extracted snippet stopped returning one entirely in August 2026.⁷ And the 2026 series fell before it climbed: 22% in January, 14% in March and 11% in April, then 40% in May and 86% in August. A curve that has reversed twice in nine months is worth tracking rather than extrapolating.

These answers function as compressed AI Overviews inside the accordion. For the questions affected there is no single extracted passage in the way a traditional PAA answer provides, which weakens the direct path from the box to one source page. At the shares now being measured, PAA has largely stopped being a placement to compete for and remains a surface to research from: the box still reveals which questions Google associates with a topic, and still expands in real time as a user clicks through them.

The relationship to featured snippets

Extracted PAA answers and featured snippets are closely related. Both are drawn from specific passages in indexed content, and the content signals that earn one tend to earn the other:

• A question-shaped heading (H2 or H3 phrased as a question)
• A concise, direct answer in the first 40–60 words below that heading
• Page authority and topical relevance for the query
• Clear, plain prose rather than dense or hedged language

The difference is placement and scope. A featured snippet occupies the single featured-snippet slot for one specific query. PAA boxes surface for many related questions, often drawing from multiple different pages. A single page can appear in PAA boxes for many question variants if it covers its topic thoroughly.

How do you appear in PAA boxes?

This section covers the extracted answers, which are now the minority case. The signals below have not changed, but the surface they win is smaller than it was, and they are worth applying for featured snippets and AI retrieval rather than for PAA alone.

There is no direct submission process for PAA. Eligibility is determined algorithmically. The practical approach:

Frame headings as questions. An H2 like “What causes slow page speed?” is more likely to earn a PAA appearance for that query than a heading like “Page Speed Factors.” The question format signals directly to Google’s extraction system.

Answer immediately and directly. The sentence immediately after a question-shaped heading should answer the question without preamble. Avoid starting with “It depends” or restating the question. Give the direct answer first; add nuance after.

Keep answers to 40–60 words. Longer answers are less likely to be extracted cleanly. The sweet spot is a complete, standalone answer that makes sense out of context.

Cover related questions within the page. A page about crawl budget that also answers “how do I calculate crawl budget”, “does page speed affect crawl budget”, and “what wastes crawl budget” has multiple PAA opportunities, not one.

Build topical authority. Google favours pages from sites with established depth on the topic. A thin page with one good answer on a weak domain is less likely to be selected than a page from a site with clear topical coverage.

Using PAA for content research

PAA boxes are a direct window into how Google structures related queries around a topic. Before writing content on any subject, run the seed keyword in Google and map the PAA boxes:

1. Search the primary keyword and note all initial PAA questions.
2. Click each question to expand it and reveal new related questions. Note the next-level questions.
3. Search related variants and repeat.
4. Group questions by intent: definition, process, comparison, troubleshooting.

This produces a map of the question space around a topic from Google’s own perspective. Gaps in your existing content become clear: if PAA boxes generate questions that no page on your site covers, those are content opportunities.

PAA research also reveals how Google frames sub-questions. The exact wording Google uses in a PAA question is often the best heading structure for a section covering that point.

Tracking PAA performance

Google Search Console does not separately label PAA traffic. Clicks from PAA answers appear as organic clicks for the underlying query, attributed to the URL that provided the answer.

Third-party tools (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz) can track whether specific URLs or queries appear in PAA boxes. Track this at query level for your high-priority topics to identify which pages are earning PAA presence and where gaps remain.

Frequently asked questions

Does appearing in a PAA box affect my organic ranking?

Appearing in a PAA box does not directly change your ranked position in organic results. You can appear in a PAA box for a query without ranking on page one organically, as PAA and organic ranking use different signals. The two often overlap, but they are not the same.

Can competitors appear in PAA boxes for my brand queries?

Yes. PAA boxes for branded queries sometimes surface competitors who have written content answering questions about your product category. The PAA surface is not brand-controlled.

Should I use FAQ schema to appear in PAA?

FAQ schema never drove PAA placement. Google removed FAQ rich results from Search entirely on 7 May 2026 (eligibility had already been restricted to a narrow set of government and health sites since 2023), with Search Console reports and API support following in June and August 2026. PAA eligibility has always been determined by content signals, not schema. Well-structured prose under question-shaped headings is what earns appearances. FAQPage markup is harmless to keep where you have a genuine FAQ section; no platform documents reading it for AI answers, and it is not a PAA lever.

Footnotes

1. Featured Snippets and Your Website — Google Search Central ↩

2. People Also Ask: What It Is & How to Optimize for It — Semrush ↩

3. Google generates nearly 13% of People Also Ask answers: Data — Search Engine Land ↩

4. New AlsoAsked data on Google AI Overviews in People Also Ask — Mark Williams-Cook (LinkedIn) ↩

5. Google People Also Ask Boxes With AI Generated Answers Grows To 38% — Search Engine Roundtable ↩

6. Massive change by Google: we are likely to see 100% AIOs within “People Also Ask” answers — Mark Williams-Cook, AlsoAsked (LinkedIn) ↩

7. Almost 100% Of People Also Ask Results Are Answered By Google AI Overviews — Search Engine Roundtable ↩