Update 5/6
Google Q & A has disappeared again. Status unknown at this time.
Update 4/30
We track Google Q & A across thousands of businesses. As of today, we have seen roughly 50% of the original volume having returned. And they are visible in primarily in the US in shopping and restaurants. We anticipate that the balance of the furloughed Q & A will return to other categories and countries after reviews have done so.
Google Q & A System Wide Count Over the Past 60 Days
Update 4/28: Like reviews, Q & A is not available for all business categories and is only currently seen on restaurants and shopping categories.
As you know, on March 20 or so Google, as part of their COVID-19 response, stopped showing any Questions & Answers (Q&A) in the business profile and stopped allowing new questions to be asked.
We monitor 10’s of thousands of locations for Google Q&A questions and responses. From that day until this Wednesday (April 22) our scrappers saw exactly ZERO questions.
Yesterday we saw three appear and today, many, many more. It appears that Google is starting the process of turning on the spigot for restaurants and shopping as we started seeing them for Dominoe’s and some big box retailers.
New Q&A Appearing And Old Ones Appearing
It appears that old Q & A are returning AND new ones are being accepted. They show in the Business Profile as well.
Somehow it is comforting to once again see the Google Q&A of yore with the Local Guide providing their “yes, no, maybe so” types of responses. And it appears that the Local Guides are raring to go, as this very topical question about whether they have alcohol was answered 12 times.
