Featured snippets display on desktop 13% more often than mobile, study finds

Google showed featured snippets on desktop 86.6% of the time compared to 73.3% on mobile, according to a 30-day study conducted by Rank Ranger. 

The findings. The study looked at a dataset of 265 keywords known to produce featured snippets on desktop. It found that, on any given day, publishers are more likely to land a featured snippet on desktop than they are on mobile because there is a higher chance that Google will show a desktop snippet.

The study also found that the URL within a featured snippet displays across devices 70.3% of the time. The remaining 29.7% of the time, the URL only displayed on one device.

Removing instances where a featured snippet was only shown on one device, the rate at which the same URL displayed in featured snippets across devices rose to 90.7%. “This means that the real disparity between Featured Snippet scorings across the two devices has less to do with URLs per se and far more to do with when Google considers the Featured Snippet relevant on each device,” wrote Mordy Oberstein, CMO of Rank Ranger.

Why we should care. Assessing whether the keyword you’re targeting for featured snippets appears more consistently on one device or the other can inform your content strategy. 

Further, researching which device your desired snippet is more likely to surface on can inform your user experience decisions.

About The Author

George Nguyen

George Nguyen is an editor for Search Engine Land, covering organic search, podcasting and e-commerce. His background is in journalism and content marketing. Prior to entering the industry, he worked as a radio personality, writer, podcast host and public school teacher.