Google Open Graph

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I wanted to find out what makes Google select a site to show the answer to a question you type in search?

For example, typing What is COSHH, brings up this site http://rospaworkplacesafety.com/2013/01/08/what-is-coshh-about-coshh/ and this answer top of Google SERPs.

COSHH stands for 'Control of Substances Hazardous to Health' and under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, employers need to either prevent or reduce their workers' exposure to substances that are hazardous to their health.8 Jan 2013

Is it their open graph mark up only?

Becky

[VERBInteractive]

Hi Becky,

If only it was that simple Open Graph, although is picked up by other platforms, is mainly for providing structured data to social platforms (mainly facebook). Plus, when you view source the open Graph tags do not reference the paragraph that Google uses for the "answer" it uses the intro paragraph which doesn't answer the question. The title is the question, so that is a step in the right direction. The answer is the second paragraph which is not referenced in any structured data that I could see.

Like many things in the search landscape we do not have direct control on how Google interprets the data and display results. What we can do is place our site in the most optimized position to be interpreted properly and provide results, things like descriptive titles and meta descriptions, Schema, etc. will help position your site for interpretation. But in the end the Google Bot analysis of all of the info on your site is what determines what results are displayed. for me more details check out: http://searchengineland.com/optimizing-google-quick-answers-box-215037 it's a year old, but most of the facts stand true.