Is “People Also Ask” still worth targeting? Not in its old form. The PAA box that used to quote a tidy FAQ answer is now almost entirely AI-generated, and most of those answers don’t link back to a source page at all. The real target now is getting named as the source inside an AI Overview — a different, harder bar GrowthAgents calls Citation Share.
What Happened To People Also Ask?
For years, PAA was the realistic entry point for small firms. Write a clean, specific FAQ answer, format it well, and Google’s algorithm might quote it directly in the expandable box under a search result. No huge domain authority required. Just a well-structured answer to a real question.
That mechanism has largely been replaced. PAA questions still appear, but the answers underneath them are increasingly generated by Google’s AI rather than pulled and quoted from a specific page.
How Fast Did This Change?
The shift happened faster than most firms have noticed. Analysis of 19.2 million English-language PAA results by Mark Williams-Cook found that AI Overviews accounted for roughly 12% of PAA answers about 14 months earlier.
By August 2026, that number had jumped to 86%. Separate data from Saeed Khosravi’s Also Ask Miner shows PAA became fully AI-generated starting that same month. One week into September 2026, the figure hit 97%.
Google’s own October 2026 webmaster report, published October 1, confirmed what the third-party data was already showing: PAA answers are now “almost 100%” AI Overviews.
Why Does This Matter For Small Firms?
PAA used to be a lower-competition lane. A firm without a big content team could still win a question box by answering one question clearly. That lane hasn’t closed — it’s changed shape.
An AI Overview doesn’t quote a page the way the old PAA box did. It synthesizes an answer and sometimes credits a source, sometimes several, sometimes none. Getting credited now depends on whether your page reads as the most specific, well-structured answer available — not whether it’s formatted for a snippet box that barely functions the old way anymore.
What’s The New Win Condition?
Call it Citation Share: the rate at which your firm’s pages get named as a source when an AI model answers a question in your practice area. It’s a harder bar than old PAA, because it rewards precision and authority over formatting tricks.
Three things tend to separate pages that earn citations from pages that don’t:
- A direct, specific answer in the first sentence or two — no throat-clearing before the substance.
- Structured, scannable content: clear questions as headings, concise answers underneath.
- Enough specificity (jurisdiction, process step, timeline) that the answer can’t be mistaken for a generic restatement of the question.
How Do You Write For Citation Share Instead Of PAA?
Keep writing FAQ-style content. Don’t keep judging it by the old standard. Before publishing, ask whether an AI model summarizing your practice area would plausibly pick your page as the source — not whether it fits a snippet box that increasingly doesn’t exist in its old form.
Is PAA completely gone?
The questions still show up. What’s gone is the old mechanism where a quoted answer from a specific page filled the box. That answer is now almost always AI-generated.
Should firms stop writing FAQ content?
No. FAQ content is still the right format for the questions clients actually ask. The bar for what counts as a winning answer has moved — write for citation, not for a snippet box.
How would a firm know if this is working?
Watch search-console metrics for your FAQ and practice-area pages — impressions, clicks, and ranking position for the questions you’re answering. That’s the evidence available to track.
Is this legal advice?
No, this is informational commentary, not legal advice.
Curious whether your firm’s FAQ pages are built to earn citations under the new rules? Run a free check at GrowthAgents SiteScan and see where your site stands.
