Google Sheets is where a lot of People Also Ask research ends up: shared with a team, filtered into a brief, or merged with keyword data. This page builds on our guide to how to export People Also Ask questions, which compares the tools and formats, and sits under our guide to using Google People Also Ask. It covers one route only: a PAA Box CSV into Google Sheets.
Step 1: download the CSV from PAA Box
- Search your topic on Google and open the PAA Box panel.
- Pick a mode (“Questions only” or “With answers”) and a depth, from D0 to D3.
- Press Unpack and wait for the run to finish.
- Press Download CSV.
The file is named after your search and the date, like PAA-Box-how-to-make-coffee-2026-09-27.csv.
Step 2: import it into Google Sheets
These steps follow Google’s own help page on importing data, on a computer:
- Open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. A new blank one is fine.
- Open or create the sheet you want to use.
- At the top, click File, then Import.
- Choose your CSV file.
- Select an import location (options below).
- Optional: for plain text files like a CSV, choose a separator character. A PAA Box file uses commas.
- Click Import.
Google lists six import locations. The ones that matter here:
- Create new spreadsheet if you want the run in its own file.
- Insert new sheets to add the run as a new tab next to your other work.
- Replace current sheet to overwrite the tab you are on, for example when you rerun a search.
- Append rows to current sheet to add the run under data that is already there. This is the one for combining several searches.
The other two are Replace spreadsheet and Replace data starting at selected cell. Google notes that not every file type offers all six.
What you will see
One row per question, in six columns:
| Column | What’s in it |
|---|---|
| Depth | 0 to 3 |
| Question | The question text, as Google showed it |
| Parent Question | The question it came from |
| Answer | Google’s answer, in With answers mode (PAA Box Pro) |
| Source URL | The answer’s source link, in With answers mode |
| Search Query | What you searched |
In questions only mode, the Answer column has no answers in it. That is expected. Rows arrive in the order PAA Box opened them: a top question, everything under it, then the next top question. If you want that order back after sorting, add a column of row numbers before you sort.
Combining several searches in one tab
Import the first CSV with Insert new sheets or Create new spreadsheet. For each file after that, click into that tab and import with Append rows to current sheet. The Search Query column tells you which search each row came from. If each appended file brings its own header row with it, delete the extra copies so they do not get mixed into your data. Running many searches? The batch workflow is on how to bulk extract People Also Ask questions.
Sorting and filtering
Two of Google’s sort and filter tools do most of the work:
- Filter: select your data, then go to Data and choose Create a filter. You can also right-click the selected cells and pick Create a filter. Use it to show only Depth 0 and 1, only one Search Query, or only rows whose Parent Question is a branch you care about.
- Sort: right-click the letter at the top of a column and choose Sort sheet A to Z or Sort sheet Z to A. Sorting by Question puts near-duplicates side by side, which makes them easy to merge.
Because every row names its parent, sorting does not lose the structure. You can always filter Parent Question to a single question and see exactly what it revealed.
A simple cleaning pass in Sheets
- Add a column called Keep, and mark each row keep, merge or drop.
- Filter to Depth 0 and 1 first. These are usually the closest to your search.
- Read deeper rows by Parent Question, one branch at a time, and drop branches that left your topic. Drift is normal; we explain it in why People Also Ask drifts off topic.
- Sort by Question and merge the near-twins.
If you are importing answers too, the Source URL column is worth its own filter: it shows which sites Google credits, and whether yours is one of them.
Will a big run fit?
Easily. A D3 run returns at most 160 rows. Google Drive’s help page puts the limit at “up to 20 million cells or 100MB for spreadsheets that are created in or converted to Google Sheets” (Google Drive Help). Even a long batch of searches is far below that.
Keep a note of when and where
People Also Ask changes over time and by country. The file name records the date, but once rows are pasted together that is easy to lose. Add a column for the date, and one for the country version of Google if you research more than one market, before you start combining. Then the sheet still makes sense months later. How deep the box goes in the first place is covered in how many People Also Ask questions Google shows.