Google is showing users “Show me how” links for some of its quick answer results. Unfortunately, so far, the only examples we’ve seen point you to Google’s own content.
Search Engine Roundtable points to an example shared by Tommy Sands on Google+, which is for the query “adwords negative keywords”. Search for that, and you’ll likely get a four-step quick answer result, followed by “Show me how”. Clicking on that takes you to an official AdWords page.
A commenter on that report points to another example for “open gmail account”. This time, it gives you a link for “Go to Account Creation”.
If you try a non-Google product-related search as “how to make french toast,” you don’t get links like this (at least we haven’t seen any yet).
The French toast example does have a link to the source site, but Google seems satisfied that it’s given you all the content you need from it, unlike with the examples from its own content, despite there being more information, like a video, on the French toast example.
It’s clear that Google is showing more and more of these “answers,” and some webmasters are worried about losing traffic they would otherwise get from the search engine. While calls to action like those it’s showing for its own results could help with that, it’s not clear that Google is bothering with them when it comes to third-party content.
Images via Google