Suggestion: Easy Way for Readers to View All Q&A

1. 79

   EricDockettposted 7 years ago

   I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I'm getting a lot of redundant questions in the Q&A. The person asking could have found the answer they needed by taking the time to look through the other questions I've already answered.
   
   Unfortunately, there is no way for them to do that. They can hop from question to question using related links at the bottom of the page, but otherwise there is no way for a reader to see all of the questions asked and answered on a specific topic.
   
   It seems like this kind of organization would be very useful. Not only would it help prevent redundant questions, but it would be a great way to keep readers engaged on the site.

   replyreport
   1. 99

      DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

      I asked HP if I could shuffle the questions so that the more relevant questions were at the top, where more readers could see them. I think that if they are the top more raders would see what they need to know and not ask the same question.
      I was told that it is not possible at this time. Questions are ranked by the number of times which they are viewed. (This means that the old questions, even if they are less relevant, are at the top and are thus more frequently viewed.)
      I definitely agree with your suggestion. Organization would help A LOT.

      replyreport
2. 66

   lobobrandonposted 7 years ago

   Something like stackoverflow would be cool too. When a user asks a question they are shown some similar questions which could be the same as what they are asking.
   
   EDIT: That is whenever the time and resources make it possible.

   replyreport
3. 64

   Glenn Stokposted 7 years ago

   The main idea of the Q&A is to have more pages that might appear in the SERPs, so redundancy is a good thing. It adds more backlinks that can bring additional readers who are searching the same questions on Google.

   replyreport
   1. 66

      lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      It is not really a good thing, there is a thing known as keyword cannibalization which would result in none of the pages ranking. Also, you do not want the question to compete with your main hub for the same reason.
      
      This is why you should not answer questions that are already answered in your hub.

      replyreport
   2. 79

      EricDockettposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Having many short pages with the same information is not a good thing. Especially since they are asking the exact same question which I would answer in the exact same way.
      
      I feel like this Q&A thing is just asking for a Google penalty as it is. Short, redundant pages that may or may not be seen as low-quality can't be helpful.

      replyreport
      1. 66

         lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Yup, it's a penalty waiting to happen. Also, the website crawl budget is being wasted on these pages in my opinion, and therefore updates to hubs are now taking longer to reflect on the search pages.

         replyreport
         1. 79

            EricDockettposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            IMO, HP needs to apply the same quality control to the Q&A as the do with Hubs. I saw several questions today which a Hubber answered with a one word "Yes". So frustrating!
            
            If a Hub needs to meet a certain quality standard to get a page on a niche site, so should an answer.

            replyreport
            1. 66

               lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               I already said that right at the start. No one from the team responded to my original thread. You were a participant if you remember. I made some solid statements there.
               
               Also, that thread was on the top for quite a few days, so it definitely did not go unseen. So far the QnA feature is the only aspect of HP that frustrates me. I use it, but I only use it because I don't want to miss out on these "extra views". When the train derails, my coach is gonna derail too. It's not gonna stay on the tracks just because I refused to partake in this hypocrisy. 
               
               EDIT: I feel this is more of a: I invested 10 Million in a dying venture, let's put in 5M more instead of killing it. This results in you losing 15M rather than just the 10M. There's a word for this, I can't seem to recall. It's on the tip of my tongue.

               replyreport
               1. 79

                  EricDockettposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  I know. I've asked for HP to clarify best practices for Q&A as well, but they've not said a word.
                  
                  I guess I'm answering questions for the same reason as you.  I'm trying to write minimum 200 words for every answer, but I'm not really convinced that's even good enough.
                  
                  While I've not gotten involved in the other thread, this floating widget thing has me concerned as well. Hundreds of links pointing from a niche site to Maven seems like an attempt to funnel traffic to me. I don't see how we don't get dinged for that.
                  
                  Things have been going so well. I hope the Q&A and the floating widgets aren't the things that send the train off the tracks, as you put it.

                  replyreport
                  1. 66

                     lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     The good thing with on-page SEO is that it is easily fixed. So stuff like this is easily undone if the domains are hit with a penalty. So the Maven links are not a huge threat from an SEO point of view. But the questions definitely are. Because those are pages and if we are hit with a penalty, those pages will have to go. And I am sure HP will then say, hey we are not going to delete all the questions, but from now on questions are going to be checked for grammar and questions below certain length are going to be removed, etc. The same as what is happening with old hubs right now. It's been years and it is still a work in progress.
                     
                     Imagine how long it would take for the questions to go through this same process. It's best to do this right from the get-go. Maintain quality on the questions. Simple.
                     
                     I really wonder who HP/Maven listen to for SEO advice.

                     replyreport
            2. 99

               DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

               HP staff has mentioned that the answers are undergoing a quality control, which is why they are not displayed immediately for some persons. A one word answer seems like a perfect reason to fail quality control.

               replyreport
               1. 79

                  EricDockettposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  I agree, but apparently it didn't. I've also seen some questions that weren't grammatically correct.

                  replyreport
         2. 99

            DrMark1961posted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Does Google limit the number or interval of updates for a particular site?

            replyreport
            1. 66

               lobobrandonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               It's called crawl budget you can look it up: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2017/ … lebot.html
               
               Basically, each website has a certain crawl budget and this is determined by Google depending on how important they think the website is. So, having a lot of pages results in some pages not being crawled and they get crawled only the next time, while a few others are not crawled and so on.
               
               There are studies with websites with many low-quality pages that were not hit by Panda. This was because they had a small crawl budget and Google did not know that they had so many low-quality pages. Hence no Panda hit.
               
               Crawl budget is not a big deal for now, but I can imagine if every article gets 5 questions (in time) on average, and these questions don't really get search traffic. The ratio of what Google thinks of quality/(number of pages) is going to go down. It's not a good thing.

               replyreport