Google launches Question Hub to tackle niche and long tail keyword queries

You are able to find answers to almost all common questions on Google. But there are some areas where Google fails to provide good answers.

Personally or me when it comes to looking for an answer for a highly technical question in medicine, Google doesn’t do well in providing good answers.

Most of the results are not directing me to pages that I’m looking for, or they show me research articles that are not scientifically validates or are not included in the guidelines. So both occasions are not valuable for me.

But the answers can be found in text books if you can look hard enough. The answer is not available on Google not because that there is an answer, but because either no one has put the answer to the internet or not discovered by Google.

Yes, highly niche searches may not have a good market, because doctors and medical students looking for answers does not count for a huge traffic.

But still if someone wants to build a good search engine, a good starting point maybe to look for a very niche field where Google is not performing well, and build on top of it.

QuestionHub by Google

Google also maybe understanding the fact that that their systems and AI is not good enough to find answers to some highly specific questions or long tail keywords.

Question Hub by Google is a service quietly launched by Google to improve their search engine when it comes to these non specific or highly specific questions, and long tail keywords .

With Question Hub, Google is hoping to get help from people to improve their search experience for these kinds of queries.

Currently users from the USA, India, Nigeria, and Indonesia can contribute to Questions by Google. However, someone accessed the platform by using a VPN and shared this screenshot in one Facebook group.

By looking at the screenshot, it appears that it’s a Quora like service, where people can add questions, and also contribute with answers and content.

People who rely on advertising can find commonly asked questions and and create content for it, and in turn get traffic and increase their ad revenue.

And Google can improve their knowledge graph and improve their service by providing a better service for its users.

It can be a win win situation for advertises, Google, users and content creators.

Downside

Question Hub can have its shortcomings. For example, this can lead to more blog spam or SEO spam, because content creators can create spammy content for these questions.

Google also has a history of killing services once they achieved their targets (bait and switch). Who knows whether Google will do the same for their Question Hub platform, and kill it once they get enough information for their knowledge graph.

So what’s your idea about Question Hub? Can it lead to a better web?