According to a Moz tracking study the new formatted quick answers box you find in Google for queries like [what is seo] is showing up 98% more often than a week ago. Overall, general answer boxes, including stock quotes, weather forecasts, box scores and so on are showing up 44% more often.

What are direct or quick answers from Google? Here is a picture of an example; but keep in mind it may or may not show images or photos within the box. However, they are different from the Knowledge Graph panel in that they are at the top of the search results.

Moz said the day-over-day increase from September 25-26 in new answer boxes was +98%, almost doubling the total number in their data set. Here is the graphic:

The overall answers box at the top is only up 44% according to Moz:

This is not to say that these answers show up for 50% of the search queries you do; they do not. But they are now showing up a lot more often for searchers. Of course, when these direct quick answers increase, publishers will not be happy.

For more on this topic, see our Google Direct Answers category.