People Also Ask tool: The buying questions to check in AI
This free People Also Ask tool turns two or three phrases into the questions buyers ask. It pulls the searches that contain them from Google's keyword data, keeps the ones closest to a purchase, and collects the People Also Ask questions Google shows for them, ready to check in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
The questions to check in AI
The searches closest to a purchase
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How the People Also Ask tool works
The People Also Ask tool works in three steps, and every number it shows comes from Google's own data for the United States.
- Find the searches. Type up to three phrases your buyers search. The tool pulls the 40 most searched queries that contain each one from Google's keyword data, with how often each is searched a month, what advertisers pay per click, how hard it is to rank for, and what the searcher wants.
- Keep the ones close to a purchase. Each search gets a buyer score, and only the searches people type while they compare or buy are kept, up to eight. Look-alikes, like small business crm and crm for small businesses, count once.
- Collect the questions. For each search it keeps, the tool reads the People Also Ask box on Google's first page and lists the questions buyers ask while they choose, the best ten first. A question that comes up for several searches ranks higher.
Buyer intent keywords, scored the same way every time
Buyer intent keywords are the searches people type when they are about to choose, and the buyer score finds them with one formula, so two runs on the same phrases always agree.
What the searcher wants
What the searcher wants comes from Google's data, which labels each search: ready to buy counts fully, comparing counts 0.8, researching 0.2 and looking for one site 0. Only searches labeled ready to buy or comparing are kept.
What advertisers pay
What advertisers pay per click carries half of the score, because advertisers pay most for the searches that turn into sales. It is the strongest sign of money behind a search.
How often it is searched
How often it is searched carries 35 percent, on a log scale, so a search with ten times the volume gains a step, not ten times the score.
How hard it is to rank
How hard it is to rank carries the last 15 percent, as ease: 1 minus the keyword difficulty out of 100. Each part is scaled from 0 to 1 across the searches in the run, after the top 5 percent of outliers are capped.
Question keywords that lead to a sale
Question keywords are searches phrased as a question, and the ones that lead to a sale ask which product to pick, what it costs, or whether it is worth it.
- Buying questions name a choice: best, top, which, versus, compare, cost, price, worth it, reviews, alternatives, free, cheapest, do I need. They come first, because they are the questions where an answer names a brand.
- Research questions, like what is or how does, are listed below the buying questions, so nothing Google showed is hidden. They fill the main list only when a run finds fewer than three buying questions.
- The same question twice counts once. When several of the kept searches show it, its score grows by a tenth for each extra search, the sign of a question many buyers share.
- A search with no People Also Ask box stands in as its own prompt, marked as the search itself, so a phrase Google answers without questions still gets checked.
People Also Ask questions are the prompts buyers type into AI
People Also Ask questions are the same questions buyers now type into ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and an AI answer to a buying question usually names brands and cites the pages it trusts.
See which pages AI cites
To see which pages AI cites, send the buying questions to Citation Gap with your brand and a rival. It asks each engine, opens every page the answers cite, and lists the pages that name your rivals and not you.
See what AI searches for
To see what AI searches for, open one question in Fan-Out. It shows the searches each engine runs before it answers, and where your site ranks on Google for each one.
See whether a page gets cited
To see whether a page gets cited, check one of your pages against a question in AI Visibility: whether Claude and ChatGPT can reach it, find it and cite it, asked three times so one lucky answer doesn't fool you.
Write the page buyers need
Write the page buyers need by answering a buying question in its first two sentences, with a plain comparison and real prices: the kind of page AI answers quote. The questions here are the headings that page needs, the way Google's People Also Ask questions became the headings of our free SEO tools FAQ.
A free AnswerThePublic alternative for AI prompts
If you have used AnswerThePublic or AlsoAsked, this free AnswerThePublic alternative starts from the same raw material, Google's questions, and adds two things they don't: a buyer score from Google's keyword data, and a way to check each question in AI answers.
- Fewer, better questions. Instead of hundreds of questions on a wheel, you get the ten that buyers ask while they choose, with the searches behind them and why each one made the list.
- The numbers behind each search. Searches a month, cost per click, difficulty and intent come from Google's keyword data through DataForSEO, the same source the keyword rank checker on this site uses.
- The limits. Google in the United States, in English, on desktop, and the questions Google shows on its first load, about four a search. The buyer score's weights follow treg's open AEO workflow.
People Also Ask tool questions
These People Also Ask tool questions come up most: what it costs, how it scores a search and where the questions come from.
Is this People Also Ask tool free?
This People Also Ask tool is free: 3 phrases a day without signing in, and 30 a day with a free Google sign-in. A phrase or a search anyone looked up in the last 24 hours comes back from our copy and doesn't count again.
What is a buying question?
A buying question is one people ask while they choose, compare or get ready to pay: which one is best, how two options compare, what it costs, whether it is worth it, what the alternatives are. An AI answer to a buying question usually names brands, which makes it the question worth winning.
How does the buyer score work?
The buyer score multiplies what the searcher wants (ready to buy 1, comparing 0.8, researching 0.2, looking for one site 0) by a mix of three numbers scaled across the run: half the cost per click, 35 percent the monthly searches on a log scale, and 15 percent how easy the search is to rank for. The searches labeled ready to buy or comparing with the highest scores are kept, up to eight.
Where do the People Also Ask questions come from?
The People Also Ask questions come from Google's first results page for each search the tool keeps, in the United States and in English, read through DataForSEO. Google shows about four questions on the first load, and the tool keeps every one and drops repeats.
Why check these questions in AI answers?
Checking these questions in AI answers shows which brands ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini name and which pages they cite, because buyers ask them the same questions they ask Google. Then you know which pages to win a place on, and which answers your own page has to give.
Can I download the questions?
You can download the questions with Download CSV, which saves them with the searches that showed them and their scores. The searches have their own CSV, with monthly searches, cost per click, difficulty, intent and buyer score.
Does it work for other countries or languages?
Every lookup reads Google in the United States, in English, so for other countries or languages the tool shows the searches, volumes and questions American buyers see.