People-Also-Ask Capture Report · India Healthcare 2026

Five numbers to anchor the rest of the report

Methodology

This study aggregates weekly SERP scrapes for 2,384 healthcare and healthcare-adjacent queries drawn from ICG's Search Intelligence Engine (155 Google Search Console properties, India geo). Every query in the sample is a live commercial or commercial-informational search term with at least 10 clicks or 100 impressions in the preceding 90 days, filtered to remove branded queries. The corpus spans 10 specialty clusters with a minimum of 140 queries per cluster.

Scrape methodology. Every query was scraped weekly across the reporting window using a rotating India-geo, incognito, no-personalisation setup at three time-of-day slots. Each SERP was parsed for the presence of a People-Also-Ask panel, the full inventory of PAA prompts visible on initial expansion, and the source URL cited for each captured prompt. Where the PAA prompt required interaction to reveal, the interaction was performed to ensure prompt inventory captured the full four-item panel.

Coverage vs capture. Two distinct metrics feature throughout this report. PAA coverage is the share of queries where a PAA panel appears at all — an SEO-adjacent metric. PAA capture is the share of PAA slots where the cited URL sits on an ICG-managed property — the acquisition-side metric. Coverage sets the ceiling; capture is what gets earned.

Anonymisation. No client names, brand names, per-URL identifiers or query strings appear anywhere in this report or its published dataset. Every figure is an aggregate across a specialty cluster or across the whole sample. Specialty labels are ICG's internal cluster taxonomy.

What this report does not claim. This is a sample of one high-authority multi-property portfolio in Indian healthcare. It is not a random sample of the wider Indian healthcare SERP. Coverage numbers are portfolio-safe — they reflect the market state — but the capture rate is portfolio-specific and should not be extrapolated to sites outside the SIE managed set without a comparable measurement pass.

Finding 1 · People-Also-Ask is now universal on Indian healthcare queries

The number: 2,116 of 2,384 tested queries (88.8 percent) triggered a People-Also-Ask panel across the reporting window. Featured snippets appeared on 41 percent of the same corpus. Local packs appeared on 62 percent. These shares are for this 2,384-query corpus; the Zero-Click report uses a different 3,102-query corpus and reports its own feature shares (PAA 82.4, featured snippet 34.2, local pack 47.1 percent).

PAA has quietly become the highest-coverage SERP feature in Indian healthcare. Coverage varies by specialty — dental cosmetic and IVF sit above 91 percent, mental-health sits at 79.7 percent — but there is no specialty in the sample below 79 percent. This is a structural change from the equivalent 2024 baseline (coverage was 61-72 percent depending on specialty) and reflects Google's ongoing shift toward answer-shaped SERPs on informational and commercial-informational queries. For content teams, PAA is no longer an optional-extra optimisation target. It is the primary answer surface on the majority of the healthcare corpus.

Finding 2 · Capture rate varies from 9 to 22 percent across specialties

The range: 22.1 percent capture in IVF and fertility at the top, 9.4 percent capture in mental-health at the bottom.

Source: ICG Search Intelligence Engine, Jan-Aug 2026. Every specialty carries n >= 140 queries; specialty labels are ICG internal cluster taxonomy.

The specialty variance is explained mostly by source competition. IVF, dental cosmetic and hair-transplant PAA slots are dominated by clinic-side content — long-form FAQ blocks, condition explainers, cost pages — where ICG-managed sites hold a structural authority position. Mental-health PAA slots are dominated by first-party institutional sources (government portals, national mental-health authority pages, hospital-network parent pages) that clinic-side content rarely displaces. Cardiology, oncology and general-clinic corpora sit in the middle, dominated by hospital-network sites where PAA capture is competitive but achievable.

Finding 3 · Verbatim question phrasing is the single biggest attribute (+51 percent)

The number: answers whose H3 or FAQ-question text matches the observed PAA prompt word-for-word are captured 51 percent more often than answers where the same content is phrased differently.

Google's PAA classifier appears to run a near-exact string match on question text before ranking the candidate answers by content quality. The implication is unambiguous: rewrite the H3 of every FAQ answer to match the observed PAA prompt exactly, even at the cost of slightly stilted writing. "What is the cost of an IVF cycle in India?" and "How much does an IVF cycle cost in India?" look nearly identical to a human reader — the classifier reads them as distinct queries and cites the former only for the former.

Finding 4 · Answer length matters — 45 to 100 words is the operating band

The band: captured PAA answers averaged 68 words. Answers under 30 words captured at half the rate of the average. Answers over 130 words captured at roughly 60 percent of the average rate.

PAA answers behave more like featured snippets than like AIO citations. Answers that are too short give the classifier nothing to lift, so it hunts elsewhere. Answers that are too long feel like body copy and get skipped entirely. The 45-100 word band is the operating range for a captured answer, with the opening 25-40 words acting as the visible-on-expansion sentence and the remaining 20-60 words providing the citation-worthy supporting detail. Content teams that operate a strict 45-100 word rule on every FAQ block ship measurably higher capture rates than teams that let answer length drift.

Finding 5 · Multi-slot capture on the same query is possible but rare

The numbers: 141 instances (1.1 percent of PAA items) had the same URL cited for two adjacent PAA slots on the same query. 6 instances captured three adjacent slots on the same query. Zero instances captured four.

Multi-slot capture is not a random event. Every observed instance shared three properties: two or more question-shaped H2s on the source page (not H3s inside a single FAQ block, but full section headings), each answering a distinct PAA prompt from the same panel, with each answer sitting inside its own 400-800 word section. The pattern is the opposite of the common "one FAQ block per page" architecture. Sites that structure a cluster page as a sequence of question-shaped sections earn multi-slot capture at a materially higher rate than sites that concentrate all Q&A into a single FAQ block near the footer.

Finding 6 · PAA click-through rate is 4-9 percent — treat it as authority, not traffic

The range: expanded PAA slots delivered 4-9 percent CTR in the sample. The same URL held to a top-3 organic position on the same query delivered 12-28 percent CTR.

PAA is a brand-visibility and answer-authority surface. The compounding value shows up on adjacent queries — a URL cited across three or four PAA slots inside the same cluster builds a topic-authority signal that materially improves ranking on other queries in that cluster. The direct-click ROI is modest; the topical-authority ROI is substantial. Teams that ignore PAA because "PAA does not drive clicks" miss the second-order effect entirely.

What this means for healthcare marketers

Four takeaways worth acting on this week.

1 · Inventory the PAA prompts on your top 200 queries this week

Pick your top 200 non-branded commercial and commercial-informational queries by GSC impressions. Scrape the PAA panel on each. That is your captureable inventory — probably 700-900 discrete PAA prompts across the set. Everything else in this list depends on having that inventory.

2 · Rewrite FAQ H3s to match the observed PAA prompt verbatim

The +51 percent single-attribute lift is why this is the first rewrite. Not paraphrased. Not "search-friendly variant". Verbatim string match. Ten minutes per FAQ block, three or four blocks per page, done inside two weeks for a mid-sized site.

3 · Enforce the 25-40 word direct-answer opener + 45-100 word total

The second attribute in the lift decomposition (+38 percent). Every FAQ answer opens with a 25-40 word direct-answer sentence, followed by 20-60 words of citation-worthy supporting detail. Total answer length between 45 and 100 words. Anything shorter gets skipped by the classifier; anything longer reads as body copy.

4 · Restructure a subset of cluster pages as sequences of question-shaped H2s

Multi-slot capture only comes from question-shaped H2 sections, each with its own 400-800 word answer block. Pick two or three cluster pillars per specialty and restructure them. The extra effort pays back through 2-3x higher PAA capture on those specific queries.

Frequently asked — People-Also-Ask capture in Indian healthcare, 2026

What percentage of Indian healthcare queries actually trigger a People-Also-Ask panel in 2026?

Roughly 88.8 percent — 2,116 of 2,384 healthcare and healthcare-adjacent queries tested from ICG's 155-property Search Intelligence Engine surfaced a People-Also-Ask panel in India geo, incognito, no personalisation. PAA coverage is now higher than featured-snippet coverage and higher than local-pack coverage on the same corpus. Coverage varies by specialty — dental cosmetic and IVF sit above 91 percent, mental health sits at 79.7 percent — but PAA is now effectively universal on informational and commercial-informational healthcare queries.

What share of PAA slots is ICG-managed content capturing on the queries where it should?

On the 12,694 PAA items surfaced across the reporting window, ICG-managed content captured 1,968 slots — a 15.5 percent capture rate. Capture rate varies from 9.4 percent (mental-health corpus, where PAA content sources tend to be first-party institutional sites) to 22.1 percent (IVF and fertility, where structured FAQ blocks on clinic-side content dominate). The efficient operating rate for a fully-optimised healthcare site sits between 18 and 25 percent — above 25 percent tends to indicate cannibalisation across cluster pages.

What is the single biggest attribute of a captured PAA answer?

Question phrasing that restates the PAA prompt verbatim. Answers whose H3 or FAQ-question text matches the PAA prompt word-for-word are captured 51 percent more often than answers where the same content is phrased differently. Google's PAA classifier appears to run a near-exact string match on question text before ranking the candidate answers by content quality. The implication for content teams is unambiguous — rewrite the H3 of every FAQ answer to match the observed PAA prompt exactly, even at the cost of slightly stilted writing.

Does the same page ever capture more than one PAA slot on the same query?

Yes but rarely. Across 12,694 PAA items in the sample, 141 instances had the same URL captured for two adjacent PAA slots on the same query, and 6 instances captured three. The pattern requires two or more question-shaped H2s on the same page, each answering a distinct PAA prompt from the same panel. Most sites optimise one FAQ block per page — the higher-performing sites optimise a question-shaped section per cluster sub-topic on the same page, which is what creates multi-slot capture.

Do PAA slots convert clicks or is this a zero-click metric?

PAA slots do convert clicks, but at roughly one-third the click-through rate of a top-3 organic result. In the sample, expanded PAA slots delivered a 4-9 percent click-through rate on average, versus 12-28 percent for the same URL when it also held a top-3 organic position. PAA is best treated as a brand-visibility and answer-authority mechanism, not a traffic-driving mechanism on its own. The compounding value is that a URL cited across three or four PAA slots on adjacent queries builds a topic-authority signal that materially improves ranking on other queries in the cluster.

How does ICG operate PAA capture against these findings?

ICG's Search Intelligence Engine tracks PAA prompt inventory weekly across every managed healthcare cluster. FAQ blocks are rewritten to match PAA prompts verbatim, with 25-40 word direct-answer openings and 45-100 word total answers. Named byline placement, FAQPage schema and cluster-level question coverage are audited monthly. Retainers custom-scoped per engagement, from ₹20,000/month.

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