Featured Snippet

A prominent box at the top of Google search results displaying a direct answer pulled from a specific webpage.

A Featured Snippet is a special result format that appears above the organic listings (often called 'position zero') that displays a direct answer to the query, pulled from a specific webpage. The answer is accompanied by the page title and URL. Featured Snippets can be paragraphs, ordered/unordered lists, tables, or code blocks.

Being awarded a Featured Snippet gives a page significantly increased SERP visibility. However, the CTR impact is complex: Featured Snippets can increase clicks (by presenting your site as the authoritative answer) or decrease them (by giving users the answer without needing to click). Research suggests that paragraph snippets reduce CTR while list-style snippets tend to maintain or increase it.

To target Featured Snippets, content should clearly and concisely answer the question the keyword implies — ideally in the first paragraph, using the question as a subheading. For list-based snippets, using structured HTML lists (ul/ol) with clear item formatting helps Google extract the content.

Featured Snippets appear less frequently now that AI Overviews are widespread. For queries where an AI Overview is shown, Featured Snippets are often suppressed. This means targeting Featured Snippets is most valuable for queries that don't trigger AI Overviews.