HOW GOOGLE
ANSWERS QUESTIONS
Content Readability
& Organic Rankings
CLAY CAZIER
VP, NATURAL SEARCH STRATEGY
JANUARY 2014
New York City (Headquarters)
5 Hanover Square, New York, NY 10004
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GOOGLE’S ORGANIC RANKING ALGORITHM IS A
COMPLEX COMBINATION OF ON- AND OFF-PAGE
FACTORS RANGING FROM TRADITIONAL ELEMENTS
LIKE TITLE/META RELEVANCE TO QUALITY OF
INCOMING LINKS. AS THE SEARCH ENGINE
IMPROVES ITS ABILITY TO RETURN ANSWERS TO
USERS’ QUESTIONS, A SITE’S ABILITY TO DELIVER
INSIGHTFUL, SUBSTANTIAL CONTENT HAS BECOME A
FACTOR UNDER INSPECTION.
WITH A SEEMINGLY ENDLESS NUMBER OF FRESH
PAGES TO BE ANALYZED EACH DAY, THE SEARCH
ENGINE MUST USE CALCULATIONS (AND NOT HUMAN
EDITORS) TO JUDGE THE EDITORIAL QUALITIES OF
THIS CONTENT. IF WE ASSUME A SCORING SYSTEM
IS BEING USED TO ASSESS CONTENT READABILITY,
WHAT CAN WE LEARN BY BENCHMARKING THE
READABILITY SCORES OF SITES WITH TOP ORGANIC
RANKINGS? OUR STUDY WILL SHOW THAT CONTENT
BETWEEN 1,600-2,300 WORDS PER PAGE ABLE TO
BE COMPREHENDED BY A PERSON WITH TWELVE TO
FIFTEEN YEARS OF EDUCATION CORRELATES WITH
ORGANIC RANKING SUCCESS FOR THESE TYPES
OF QUESTION QUERIES. FURTHER, “REQUIRED”
COMPLEXITY INCREASES AS WE MOVE FROM THE TOP
THIRTY RANKINGS TO TOP TEN BUT SIGNIFICANTLY
DECREASES FOR TOP THREE RANKINGS.
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1
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
BACKGROUND
Over the past few years, Google has made a number of changes to how they rank organic
results. Both the Panda and Penguin series of updates have the goal of pushing high
quality content to the top of the rankings, while penalizing sites that violate guidelines
(like participating in paid link schemes). At the same time, Google has rolled out both
Universal Search and Knowledge Graph improvements which, in combination, have
altered the semantic “intelligence” and media types returned within organic results.
More recently, core algorithm updates like Hummingbird have expanded Google’s goal from being simply a keyword search engine to a
system meant to organize the web’s information & answer questions posed in natural language. Yes, this is ultimately about providing
relevant results but it could also be said that Google is moving toward being more of a solution engine rather than just a search engine.
In a 2011 post titled “More guidance on building high-quality sites”, Google Fellow Amit Singhal advised that twenty-three
questions encompass Google’s “take at encoding what we think our users want”. These questions are how Google is attempting to
move its algorithm to from a search system to a system that delivers insightful answers to users’ questions:
1.Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2.Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows
the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3.Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant
articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different
keyword variations?
13.Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or
hastily produced?
14.For a health related query, would you trust information from
this site?
15.Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source
when mentioned by name?
4.Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information
to this site?
16.Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive
description of the topic?
5.Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
17.Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting
information that is beyond obvious?
6.Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of
the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to
guess what might rank well in search engines?
18.Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a
friend, or recommend?
7.Does the article provide original content or information,
original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
19.Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that
distract from or interfere with the main content?
8.Does the page provide substantial value when compared to
other pages in search results?
20.Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine,
encyclopedia or book?
9.How much quality control is done on content?
21.Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in
helpful specifics?
10. Does the article describe both sides of a story?
11. Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
12.Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large
number of creators, or spread across a large network of
sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much
attention or care?
22.Are the pages produced with great care and attention to
detail vs. less attention to detail?
23.Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
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2
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
BACKGROUND
It’s easy to see how elements of these twenty-three questions have made it into changes like
Panda (site quality questions like numbers 3, 6,7, 12, 19 and 21, for example) but there’s a certain
“editorial” thread within other questions that lean more toward content analysis than technical or
authority-based factors. Sure, spelling errors are easy to find but how is an algorithm to judge
whether content i) contains “insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious”;
ii) provides “substantial value”; iii) contains “stylistic” errors; or iv) whether the piece is “shallow in
nature”? Assessing these points is crucial to Google’s success if their aim is to answer questions
with confidence.
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3
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY AS A RANKING FACTOR?
It is not practical for Google’s algorithm to rely on human editors to judge the comprehensiveness
or depth of content. At the end of the day, a mathematical solution is needed to judge the editorial factors Singhal has outlined. An
article’s word count could be part of simply assessing whether an article is “short”, but more abstract points like “unsubstantial” or level of
“insight” provided by the piece are not so simply quantified. A hypothesis worth testing is that these issues could be mathematically quantified
using one or more established readability scores such as Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level or the Gunning Fog Index. Could
it be good organic rankings directly correlate to articles that are both long and easy to read? Or will we find complexity singularly correlates
with organic ranking success? We admit there are far more factors determining organic rankings than just the readability of the text but, by
measuring these scores, perhaps we can establish benchmarks by which webmasters can judge the likelihood of their content of conforming to
Google’s unwritten editorial standards.
MEASURING READABILITY
Flesch Reading Ease Score
Simply put, this score is derived from the average number of words per sentence and the
average number of syllables per word weighted by the following formula:
206.835 – (1.015 x Avg Sentence Length) – (84.6 x Avg Syllables per Word)
The lower the score, the harder the document is to read and comprehend. A higher score is
considered easier to read and comprehend. For orientation, Wikipedia notes that Reader’s
Digest magazine has a readability index of about 65, Time magazine scores about 52 and
the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s. While the maximum
score is 120, pieces of content that are extremely difficult to comprehend can actually rank
negatively. For example, this sentence from Moby Dick actually has a Flesch Reading Ease
Score of -145.9:
-145.9
“Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen
longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat
is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though,
while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s
live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewelhilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and
though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the
same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and
though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic,
systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere,
or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might
be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most
socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or
occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial
spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea.”
- Moby Dick Or, The Whale By Herman Melville
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4
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY AS A RANKING FACTOR?
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
Inversely correlated to the Flesch Reading Ease Score, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
calculates a score between 0-100, where lower numbers indicate a lower level of education
required to comprehend the text. For example, a score of 8 would indicate eight years of
education are required to comprehend the text. Our Moby Dick example above is at the
opposite end of the spectrum with an astounding Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 90.3
returned using the following formula:
90.3
(0.39 x Avg Sentence Length) + (11.8 x Avg Syllables per Word) - 15.59
Gunning Fog Index
This score is an attempted refinement of the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level where “complex”
words of three or more syllables are focused upon and words like proper nouns are not
counted. To be precise, the formula is:
0.4 (Avg Sentence Length + Percentage of Hard Words)
A Gunning Fog Index of 12 indicates a person needs to be a senior in high school to
comprehend the text. Articles requiring near-universal understanding should have an index
less than 8. Our Moby Dick passage, above, has a Gunning Fog index of 94.9.
94.9
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5
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
METHODOLOGY
Our goal was to record organic
search rankings within Google’s
US index and see how those
results’ readability scores
correlate to ranking success.
Since our particular interest was in Google’s
ability to return content that accurately answers
searchers’ questions, we created twenty
question stubs like “how to”, “what is the”, etc.,
and compiled Google AutoComplete’s top ten
suggested questions for each. We then queried
Google.com for the top thirty organic rankings
associated with those two hundred fully-formed
questions. For example, the top ten autocompletions of “how to” were:
1. how to tie a tie
2. how to take a screenshot on a mac
3. how to twerk
4. how to boil eggs
5. how to make french toast
6. how to tie a bow tie
7. how to get rid of fleas
8. how to roast pumpkin seeds
9. how to write a cover letter
10. how to divide fractions
(A full list of those two hundred questions can be found in the Appendix
to this document.)
With the top thirty organic ranking URLs for these
two hundred questions in hand (6,000 URLs in
total), master web application developer Rob
Hurring assisted by creating an online form that,
when submitted, would extract all text content
from between a URL’s <body></body> tags and
process that content through Christopher Giffard’s
freely available TextStatistics script to produce the
text’s Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level and Gunning Fog Index scores. Those
6,000 URLs’ scores were calculated using this
system and complied in a database for analysis.
Methodology Notes
•H
TML tags and their attributes were not included in word/syllable counts.
(e.g. <li id=”lots of long words”> counted for zero words, zero syllables)
•T
ext found within <script></script> tags was not included in
word/syllable counts.
•P
DF, PPT & DOC results received no score, as their content was not found
within the pages’ <body> itself.
•T
he presence of a period was used to mark the end of a sentence.
• Words within page navigation were counted toward the readability score
because they appear in the page <body>. This means, if the navigation includes
a long list of bullets with no period at the end of any item, they will be counted as a
very long sentence. How does this impact word count and readability?
- Word count: a sample set of URLs were manually checked for percent of
words appearing in navigation. On average, approximately 28% of words
were found within site navigation.
- Readability: a sample set of URLs were manually checked for Flesch
Reading Ease & Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability scores. On
average, Flesch Reading Ease was reduced by 0.8% & Flesch-Kincaid Grade
Level was increased by 0.7% - the articles became slightly more difficult to
comprehend without navigation text considered.
• Most users’ comments at the end of articles are included in the readability
score. For example, the URL http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-let-go-of-a-pastrelationship-10-steps-to-peacefully-move-on/ is counted as having more than
20,000 words because more than 1,000 users’ comments are able to be indexed.
The exceptions are comments contained within client side scripts such as those
on YouTube pages like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG-ibVdYmtI. Does this
greatly impact our scoring? No. Our manual checks show that approximately 15%
of pages returned had comments able to be indexed.
• It is feasible that Google’s systems would be able to eliminate surrounding
navigation and user-generated content from their systems but that level of
refinement was not achieved for this study.
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6
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
GENERAL RESULTS
RANKING ROOT DOMAINS
Before we dive in to readability scores, let’s first canvass the sites that possess the most organic visibility
for the searches in question.
comes as little surprise that Wikipedia,
It
an über-authoritative online encyclopedia,
dominates the top organic rankings and,
likewise, that Google-supplied features
and YouTube videos follow closely
behind. The inclusion of Google features
and video is in line with the integration of
both Universal Search and Knowledge Graph
enhancements.
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7
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
GENERAL RESULTS
RANKING ROOT DOMAINS
What is interesting is that, of the sites
with rankings in the first position, 150
of 200 questions have sites other than
Wikipedia, Google and YouTube that hold
down the #1 spot. This stands in stark
contrast to our initial, somewhat resigned
feeling that sites like Wikipedia and YouTube
dominate top rankings to the exclusion of all
others.
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8
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
GENERAL RESULTS
RANKING CONTENT GROUPS
Seeing the presence of YouTube.com and
“answers” sites like WikiHow.com among
these top results draws us to inspect
rankings by what we will call content
groups: videos (in general), answers
sites, PDFs, .EDU & .GOV sites.
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9
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
GENERAL RESULTS
RANKING CONTENT GROUPS
The “Answers sites” group is defined
as the following: Amazon Askville,
AnswerBag.com, Answers.com, Ask.com,
EHow.com, FunTrivia.com, GotQuestions.
org, HowStuffWorks.com, JustAnswer.
com, Quora.com, WebAnswers.com,
WikiHow.com, WiseGeek.com, Yahoo
Answers. Of these, Yahoo Answers,
Answers.com & WikiHow.com are the most
common in the top 30 (in that order). Ask.
com has the most significant presence of all
answers sites in the top 100 but no top 30
rankings.
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10
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
GENERAL RESULTS
RANKING CONTENT GROUPS
These charts show us that “answer sites”
are still very effective at ranking in the top
ten organic search results, more so than
video, PDF, .EDU or .GOV sites.
For all but the #1 position, video results
do as well or better at achieving top
organic rankings than .EDU and .GOV
sites for our set of queries.
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11
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY RESULTS
NO SCORE
Out of the 6,000 URLs processed, 339 URLs (5.7%) were
returned with no score information. This is to be expected, if
all else, because PDF, PPT and DOC files with top thirty rankings
received no score.
In the pie chart at left, Google URLs with no readability scores were
from Google Image Search, Google Books, News aggregation results
or “definition” results. Examples are shown below.
Google Image Search Result
Google Books Result
Google News Result
Google Definitions Box Result
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12
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY RESULTS
AVERAGE WORDS PER PAGE
Let’s first present what is likely an over-simplification of content quality analysis: number of words on a page. Does high word count
correlate to organic ranking success? The standard SEO answer is that you should write enough content to make your point in a quality manner
without regard to how many words are on the page. (Google’s seminal post on the twenty-three qualities does say “…focus on delivering
the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or
signals…”) With this, we’ll acknowledge that adding fluff text for the sake of word count alone is counter-productive. Check. This is where
many SEO pros stop giving advice.
A bold few have moved the conversation forward by i) suggesting that HTML character count correlates slightly to organic ranking success
(Moz’s 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors); ii) suggesting, as Aaron Wall does, that the “best” word count can be viewed in terms of site
goals (CPM revenue sites should have lots of pages with fewer words, lead generation sites should minimize content so it doesn’t interfere
with conversions, etc.); and iii) factoring in indexation concerns (e.g. don’t produce more pages than Google will index for a low PR site). This
is helpful but most of us still want a number. Generally speaking, should a page have 350 words or, say, 600, for the best chance of attaining a
top 30, 20 or 10 organic ranking?
• First, it is notable that pages in Google’s
#1 and top three organic positions have
the highest per-page word count of the
datasets. Copy length does appear to
correlate with top organic rankings for the
types of questions under investigation.
The analysis gets more complex when we
consider that the average word count of all
pages with top 10 organic rankings is actually
lower than all other datasets – those with
rankings between 10 and 20 and even 20
and 30. All other things being considered
equal, word count cannot be viewed as the
lone correlative factor for organic ranking
success.
• What is interesting to note is that the
average words per page is not in the 350500 word range. Even if we assume 28% of
our pages’ word count is from navigation text,
our data still points to at least 1,679-2,312
words per page as a target for achieving the
kind of user experience needed for optimal
rankings.
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13
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY RESULTS
AVERAGE FLESCH READING EASE SCORE
Moving on to focus on “insightful” and “substantial” content measurement, Flesch Reading Ease score judges the general
complexity of a piece. We acknowledge that content complexity does not necessarily mean a page is either insightful or substantial, but these
are the types of compromises a math-based algorithm must make. At minimum, it’s worth testing this assertion as a hypothesis.
• For the 94.3% surveyed URLs that
returned a Flesch Reading Ease score,
we see an overall top thirty average of
49.29 – just a tad bit more complex than
the average Time Magazine article and, by
our measurement, approximately the same
complexity as a Wikipedia page with top 30
rankings (which, as a segment, had a Flesch
Reading Ease score of 49.62).
• Pages ranked in the top 30, 20 and 10
scored as increasingly more complex, with
pages between 20-30 scoring 54.18, pages
between 10-20 scoring 52.97 and those in the
top ten scoring 40.07 on the Flesch Reading
Ease scale.
• Complexity itself does not appear to be
a magic bullet for #1 rankings, as we see
the top 10 rankings have a complexity score
of 40.07 (most complex dataset in the survey)
but 51.93 for the top three and 48.55 for the
number one position. Within top ten organic
results, there is no predictable ramp up in
complexity from top 10 to top three or number
one.
• Recalling that the word count for pages
in the top 10 was the lowest of all datasets
(2,332 words per page, on average), we again
note that this dataset is shown as the most
complex in terms of Flesch Reading Ease
score. As word count goes down, it could
be said complexity needs to go up.
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14
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
READABILITY RESULTS
AVERAGE FLESCH-KINCAID
GRADE LEVEL
It’s no surprise that the Flesch-Kincaid
Grade Levels we see mirror what we saw
for Flesch Reading Ease – for example, top
10 rankings correlate with a more complex
content profile that requires a higher level
of education to comprehend. Once more,
though, we note that pages in the number
one position are less complex than those in
the top ten as a whole.
AVERAGE GUNNING FOG
INDEX SCORE
While the Gunning Fog Index score
is calculated using slightly different
formulas than Flesch-Kincaid, the results
are much the same with one exception:
the top three and #1 averages are the lowest
required years of education of all datasets. If
we accept this as a more refined version of
Flesch-Kincaid, we could assert that more
lengthy but more easily comprehended
content is the correlative formula for content
ranking success.
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15
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
CONCLUSIONS
Our benchmark study has revealed a number of interesting points
about Google’s attempt at answering user questions. First, we saw that
Wikipedia and content supplied by Google (such as Google Images,
Google News & YouTube) are generally the most visible pages within
Google.com’s top three organic ranking positions. With that said, these
three domains compose no more than 25% of organic ranking domains
for our datasets. Similarly, we saw that video, PDF, .EDU and .GOV
sites do not play as large a role in organic rankings as “answer sites”
like Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com. These findings are contrary to
the popular opinion that Google is weighting top results with their own
properties or those of educational or governmental sites.
Focusing on our core questions on content complexity and readability,
we saw that content requiring twelve to fifteen years of education
correlates with organic ranking success. Top ten ranked content was, on
average, at the high end of this requirement but content ranking between
number one and three dropped drastically in complexity to levels below
ten years - lower than all other ranking groups. This is not to say that
the content within the top three rankings was short or non-substantial on the contrary - we saw an average of well over 2,000 words per page
for these groups of rankings. When the length of content was at its
shortest (the top ten ranking dataset), it is notable that the complexity
score was the highest of all datasets. There appears to be an inverse
relationship between content length and required complexity.
In summary, what can webmasters learn from this study? First, Google
does not statistically prefer Wikipedia, its own properties or video over
other types of content. Second, it is true that user experience should
determine the length of the content you develop but there is a correlation
of lengthy content (>2,000 words) and top organic rankings. Third, it is
worth considering that content with top ten organic rankings correlates
to a Flesch Reading Ease score between 40.07 and 51.93 but that this
readability level is not, itself, the determining factor in organic rankings,
as top three and number one rankings rate as easier to read than the
average of top twenty results.
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16
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17
How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
APPENDIX
Question stub: “how to”
Question stub: “best way to”
Question stub: “what is the”
1. how to tie a tie
1. best way to lose weight
1. what is the illuminati
2. how to take a screenshot on a mac
2. best way to learn spanish
2. what is the tea party
3. how to twerk
3. best way to cook salmon
4. how to boil eggs
4. best way to cook bacon
5. how to make french toast
5. best way to quit smoking
6. how to tie a bow tie
6. best way to whiten teeth
7. how to get rid of fleas
7. best way to save money
8. how to roast pumpkin seeds
8. best way to get rid of mice
9. how to write a cover letter
9. best way to invest money
8. what is the constitution
10.how to divide fractions
10.best way to burn fat
9. what is the best tablet
3. what is the meaning of life
4. what is the debt ceiling
5. what is the mean
6. what is the scientific method
7. what is the paleo diet
10.what is the affordable care act
Question stub: “how do I”
Question stub: “why do”
1. how do i get a passport
1. why do cats purr
Question stub: “who is the”
2. how do i love thee
2. why do we yawn
1. who is the richest person in the world
3. how do i ask a girl out
3. why do we dream
4. how do i sign up for obamacare
4. why do men cheat
5. how do i craft this again
5. why do dogs eat grass
6. how do i enable cookies
6. why do dogs lick
7. how do i renew my passport
7. why do cats knead
8. how do i delete my facebook account
8. why do people yawn
9. how do i block a number
9. why do leaves change color
7. who is the new christian grey
10.how do i update my itunes
10.why do dogs howl
8. who is the secretary of defense
2. who is the stig
3. who is the voice of siri
4. who is the president of the senate
5. who is the speaker of the house
6. who is the antichrist
9. who is the female titan
10.who is the richest woman in the world
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How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
APPENDIX
Question stub: “what are”
Question stub: “list of”
Question stub: “what do”
1. what are prime numbers
1. list of presidents
1. what do dreams mean
2. what are the ten commandments
2. list of prepositions
2. what do turtles eat
3. what are bitcoins
3. list of adjectives
3. what do contractions feel like
4. what are capers
4. list of disney movies
4. what do crickets eat
5. what are shin splints
5. list of prime numbers
5. what do squirrels eat
6. what are the 7 continents
6. list of breaking bad episodes
6. what do grasshoppers eat
7. what are bitstrips
7. list of states
7. what do mormons believe
8. what are the seven deadly sins
8. list of countries
8. what do ribosomes do
9. what are poppers
9. list of pokemon
9. what do skunks eat
10.what are gmos
10.list of phobias
10.what do frogs eat
Question stub: “in what ways are”
Question stub: “steps in”
Question stub: “are the”
1.in what ways are herbivores and
carnivores alike
1. steps in a mile
1. are the property brothers gay
2. steps in the scientific method
2. are the seasons capitalized
3. steps in buying a house
3. are the property brothers married
4. steps in the writing process
4. are the national parks open
5. steps in a relationship
5. are the property brothers twins
6. steps in the accounting cycle
6. are the koch brothers jewish
7. steps in protein synthesis
7. are the chiefs for real
8. steps in building a house
8. are the sites of protein synthesis
9. steps in a trial
9. are the village people gay
10.steps in muscle contraction
10.are the yankees in the playoffs
2. in what ways are cells similar to atoms
3.in what ways are homologous
chromosomes similar
4.in what ways are addition and
multiplication different
5.in what ways are beowulf and grendel
alike
6.in what ways are addition and
multiplication alike
7. in what ways are liquids and gases alike
8.in what ways are africa and oceania
similar
9. in what ways are they different
10.in what ways are people defensive
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How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
APPENDIX
Question stub: “are there”
Question stub: “when will”
Question stub: “where did”
1. are there sharks in gta 5
1. when will the government shutdown end
1. where did columbus land
2. are there snakes in hawaii
2. when will the world end
2. where did aids come from
3. are there tigers in africa
3. when will the government reopen
3. where did the party go lyrics
4. are there aliens
4. when will the shutdown end
4. where did pizza originate
5. are there polar bears in alaska
5. when will ios 7 be released
5. where did halloween come from
6. are there gay animals
6. when will i ovulate
6. where did you sleep last night lyrics
7. are there prostitutes in gta 5
7. when will i see you again
7. where did god come from
8. are there snakes in ireland
8. when will i die
8. where did soccer originate
9. are there any black amish
9. when will my life begin
9. where did the titanic sink
10.are there bears in africa
10.when will iphone 5s ship
10.where did islam originate
Question stub: “who has”
Question stub: “was there”
Question stub: “why the”
1. who has the power to declare war
1. was there an earthquake today
1. why the government shutdown
2. who has the most subscribers on youtube
2. was there life on mars
2. why the caged bird sings
3. who has to sign up for obamacare
3. was there a draft in ww2
3. why the sky is blue
4. who has played batman
4. was there an apollo 18
4. why the lucky stiff
5. who has the most superbowl rings
5. was there ever life on mars
5. why the government shutdown 2013
6. who has taylor swift dated
6. was there an iphone 2
6. why the articles of confederation failed
7. who has the most instagram followers
7. was there a woman before eve
7. why the death penalty is good
8. who has won the most world series
8. was there just an earthquake
8. why there is no god
9. who has won the voice
9. was there a real king arthur
9. why the bible is true
10.who has the most followers on vine
10.was there a draft in ww1
10.why the xbox one is better
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How Google Answers Questions:
Content Readability & Organic Rankings
APPENDIX
Question stub: “how did”
1. how did paul walker die
2. how did bob marley die
3. how did this get made
4. how did dexter end
5. how did bruce lee die
6. how did hitler die
7. how did elvis die
8. how did halloween start
9. how did breaking bad end
10.how did they film gravity
Question stub: “when and where was”
1. when and where was shakespeare born
2. when and where was benjamin franklin born
3. when and where was the constitution written
4. when and where was islam founded
5. when and where was buddhism founded
6. when and where was judaism founded
7. when and where was printmaking first developed
8. when and where was hinduism founded
9. when and where was christopher columbus born
10.when and where was william shakespeare born
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