People Also Ask (PAA)
Updated June 22, 2026 · Reviewed by the Quratic editorial team
Definition
People Also Ask (PAA) is a Google SERP feature showing expandable question-and-answer boxes related to the query. Winning PAA placements captures long-tail visibility and trains content structure toward the FAQ format answer engines prefer.
Question clusters on the SERP
PAA boxes surface related questions (“How much does X cost?”, “X vs Y?”) with short extracts from ranked pages. Clicking one expands the answer and loads more questions — a recursive long-tail surface. Content modeled as explicit Q&A — question heading + answer block — competes for PAA and doubles as AEO infrastructure.
Pair visible FAQs with valid FAQPage structured data; content must match markup exactly.
How PAA differs from AI Overviews
PAA shows one source per expanded question, usually extractive. AI Overviews synthesize across sources. PAA is a stepping stone: pages that win PAA often become inputs to later generative summaries.
In Asian markets
Question phrasing in PAA differs by language — literal translation of English FAQ headings misses local forms. Build FAQ libraries from local support tickets and sales calls per market.
Example
A glossary hub structured as FAQ captures five PAA slots for definitional queries. Those same URLs become the highest-citation-rate pages when Perplexity answers related prompts.