Should answerCount include hidden answers?

Definition: Yes. In Google's QAPage structured data guidance, answerCount is the total number of answers to the question, including answers omitted from the current paginated page. The Answer objects in the markup can cover only the answers shown on that page.

Key facts

• Google's QAPage documentation gives the example of 15 total answers with only the first 10 marked up because of pagination, and says that answerCount is 15.
• Schema.org defines answerCount as the number of answers the question has received.
• Google says that answerCount may be 0 when a question has no answers, while a question without an answer is ineligible for the QAPage rich result.
• Google says that answerCount plus commentCount should equal the total number of replies of any type.
• Google's pagination guidance says that URLs in a paginated sequence are treated as separate pages and that each page should have a unique URL.

What does answerCount measure?

answerCount describes the question as a whole. It is a required property in Google's QAPage table, where the documented value is the total number of answers. The page gives a concrete pagination case: 15 answers exist, the current markup contains the first 10, and the value remains 15. The property records the collection total. The number of Answer objects serialized in one response is a separate quantity.

Schema.org's definition is shorter but consistent: answerCount is “The number of answers this question has received.” Google adds the pagination example that makes the scope operational for a website with several answer pages.

The related reply count has a separate role. Google states that answerCount plus commentCount should equal the total number of replies of any type. A comment is therefore counted through commentCount, while an answer is counted through answerCount, even when the two kinds of reply are displayed in different parts of the page.

How should paginated markup be shaped?

Keep the total in answerCount, then describe the answers represented by the current page with the supported acceptedAnswer or suggestedAnswer properties. Google's QAPage documentation expects exactly one Question nested under QAPage's mainEntity, and it says that each Answer should contain the entire text of that answer.

The relevant fragment can be represented as follows:

{
  "answerCount": 15
}

The number 15 is the documented total in Google's pagination example. Other supported properties describe the answers represented on the page. If the question has no answers, Google permits answerCount to be 0, but says that unanswered questions are ineligible for the rich result.

What does pagination change for crawling?

Google defines pagination as links such as “next”, “previous”, and page numbers that display one page of results at a time. Its pagination documentation says that Google generally crawls URLs in the href attribute of a elements, while crawlers generally do not click buttons or trigger JavaScript functions that require user actions to update page contents.

For a paginated Q&A, each answer page therefore needs a crawlable URL and links that expose the sequence. Google recommends links from each page to the following page, and says that URLs in a paginated sequence are treated as separate pages. This crawling guidance concerns access to the pages, while the QAPage count rule keeps the total in answerCount.

Related terms

• QAPage structured data
• Pagination
• Structured data
• JSON-LD

FAQ

Should you set answerCount to the number of answers in the HTML?

No. Set it to the total number of answers to the question. Google's example keeps the value at 15 when the page marks up only the first 10 answers because of pagination.

Can you use answerCount 0 for a new question?

Yes. Google documents 0 for a question with no answers. That question is not eligible for the QAPage rich result until it has an answer.

Should comments be included in answerCount?

No. Google assigns comments to commentCount and says the two counts together equal the total number of replies of any type.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, "Q&A (QAPage) structured data", 8 September 2026
2. Schema.org, "answerCount", no date shown
3. Google Search Central, "Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google Search", 10 December 2025

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