One SEO professional asked John Mueller about FAQs.
So they have two websites. One of these is a service website. And the other is a recipe website.
On the service website, they have different FAQs based on different city pages for their services.
Their question is: do they have to create separate pages for FAQs? Or can they just add them to the same city pages?
John explained that from Google’s perspective, you can do whatever you want.
The FAQ rich result type can be shown in the search results. And it’s not guaranteed that it’s always shown. But, it could be.
And it’s shown for the page where Google found that markup. So if you make a separate page with the FAQ markup on it, and that separate page is shown in search results, then Google can show it.
If that second page is not shown, however, then Google would not be able to show it.
John also believes the same applies to the recipe website example.
John explained that they have seen that most recipe websites are not providing very useful information.
And Google tries to change that by providing more information.
Additionally, regarding the question about what is the best way to add FAQs for recipes:
From John’s perspective, this is totally up to the SEO pro. The one thing he would watch out for, however, in cases like this, is where you have multiple rich results types that are potentially relevant for these pages.
There are some rich results Google can combine, and there are other types of rich results that Google cannot combine.
If, however, you notice that no other recipe website has the recipe rich snippet plus the FAQ section on the bottom, then Google probably cannot combine those.
Then, it’s probably better for the SEO pro to focus on which type of rich result type that they really want to have shown and focus purely on that type.
This happens at approximately the 41:12 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Submitted Question) 41:12
Let’s see, questions about FAQs. I have two websites. One of them is a service website. The other is a recipe website. So on the service website, I have different FAQs based on different city pages for my services. Do I have to create separate pages for FAQs? Or can I just add them to the same city pages?
John (Answer) 41:31
From our point of view, you can do whatever you want. So the FAQ rich result type can be shown in the search results. And it’s not guaranteed that it’s always shown. But it could be. And it’s shown for the page where we found that markup. So if you make a separate page with the FAQ markup on it, and that separate page is shown in the search results, then we can show it. If that separate page is not shown, then we wouldn’t be able to show it.
And let’s see, I think the same applies to the recipe website example there. We’ve seen that most recipe websites are not providing very useful information in my country. And we try to change that by providing more useful information. And going to the point of adding FAQs to every recipe. What is the best way to add these FAQs?
And again, from my point of view, it’s totally up to you. The one thing I would watch out for in cases like this, where you have multiple rich results types that are potentially relevant for your pages, is that some of these types we can combine and some of them we can’t really combine that well. I don’t know specifically, when it comes to recipes, if we can combine them, or if we essentially have to choose one or the other.
And if you have, if you notice that no other recipe website has a recipe rich snippet plus the FAQ section on the bottom, then probably we can’t combine those. And then it’s probably better for you to pick which type of rich result type you really want to have shown and to focus on purely that type.
