PAA
People Also Ask
In one line
PAA (People Also Ask) is the expanding question box on Google SERPs — every click reveals more related questions, dynamically generated by Google.
Going deeper
PAA shows a stack of related questions next to the regular results. Clicking one expands further questions, forming a kind of intent map for the topic.
PAA matters in two ways. First, it is a content-planning gold mine: the questions Google groups together tell you what to write next. Second, it is a direct exposure surface — being cited inside a PAA answer earns extra traffic.
PAA answers look a lot like featured snippets, so writing a clear question heading paired with a tight answer tends to perform well across PAA, snippets and AI answers all at once.
Related terms
Featured Snippet
A featured snippet is the boxed answer Google extracts from a single page and pins to the top of the SERP — often called 'position zero'.
SEOSERP
SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page a search engine returns for a query — now mixing organic links with ads, rich features and AI-generated answers.
SEORich Snippet
A rich snippet is a search result enriched with extra information — star ratings, prices, images, FAQ — that tends to outperform plain text results on CTR.
GEO·AEOAI Overview
Google AI Overviews is the AI-generated summary that appears above the standard results in Google Search — one of the most prominent zero-click surfaces today.
SEOStructured Data
Structured data is content marked up in a standard format so search engines and AI systems can understand exactly what each part of the page means.