• Search Engine Land
  • Sections
    • SEO
    • SEM
    • Local
    • Retail
    • Google
    • Bing
    • Social
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • Follow Us
    • Follow
  • Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Resources
  • Live
  • More
  • Events
    • Follow
  • SUBSCRIBE

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land
  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social
  • Resources
  • More
  • Newsletters
  • Home
SEO

Google publishes comprehensive guide to featured snippets

Learn more about how Google’s featured work, the variations and some of the challenges Google faces with these snippets.

Barry Schwartz on January 30, 2018 at 1:00 pm
  • More

Google has published one of the most comprehensive explanations yet of their featured snippets in a post on the search blog. Featured snippets, in short, are the quick direct answers you see at the top of the Google search results page that appear in response to some search queries.

In this blog post, Google explains what featured snippets are, the various user interfaces and treatments you can get from these featured snippets and how they interact with desktop, mobile and voice search results. Google says featured snippets are important for mobile search and with voice-activated digital assistants. Google said “in these cases, the traditional ’10 blue links’ format doesn’t work as well, making featured snippets an especially useful format.”

Google added that they will “continue to show regular listings in response to searches along with featured snippets.” That is “because featured snippets aren’t meant as a sole source of information…. …they’re part of an overall set of results we provide, giving people information from a wide range of sources,” Google added.

Here are some of the screen shots of normal featured snippets that Google may show to searchers on desktop or mobile:

In addition, those suggested video clips, which jump directly into a video result, are also a form of featured snippets. Google said they “recently launched” this experience, but it has been live for at least the past several months:

Those who use Google Assistant or Google Home devices can access their full search results later, when they get to their mobile phone, within the Google Home app.

In the post, Google explains that their featured snippets are not perfect — acknowledging cases of inaccurate or insensitive information, people trying to vandalize the results and spam issues. Google admits they have more work to do and will continue to improve these results over time. As evidence, Google points to their voice quality raters guidelines and those efforts to improve the quality of those results.

Google shared how they may explore showing more featured snippet results to offer more diversity, in the form of adding a “more results” link under a featured snippet:

Or featured snippet tags, to refine the query:

Or showing more options to your question with multiple featured snippet boxes right away in the search results:

“There are often legitimate diverse perspectives offered by publishers, and we want to provide users visibility and access into those perspectives from multiple sources,” said Matthew Gray, a Google software engineer.

We’ve covered time and time again how featured snippets sometimes get it wrong.

Google asks that you submit feedback using the “Feedback” link found within the featured snippets so that the company can continue to make improvements over time.



About The Author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

Related Topics

Channel: SEOGoogle: Featured Snippets & Direct AnswersGoogle: SEO

We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Lorem ipsum doler this is promo text about SMX events.

February 23, 2021: SMX Report

April 13, 2021: SMX Create

May 18-19, 2021: SMX London

June 8-9, 2021: SMX Paris

June 15-16, 2021: SMX Advanced

August 17, 2021: SMX Convert

November 9-10, 2021: SMX Next

October 2021: SMX Advanced Europe

December 14, 2021: SMX Code

Available On-Demand: SMX

×


Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges. Our next conference will be held:

MarTech 2021: March 16-17

MarTech 2021: Sept. 14-15

MarTech 2020: Watch On-Demand

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • Become an Experience-Led Business with an Agile CX Tech Stack
  • Transformational CX: Video-Powered Experiences Meet Consumers’ Demands
  • What Customer Experience Means in 2021
  • 4 Ways to Commodity-Proof Your Company
  • Threat report: How are different industries battling cybercrime?
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • The AI Revolution Is Coming to Every Stage of Your Buyer’s Journey
  • The Fundamentals of Link Building for E-Commerce & Affiliate Sites in 2021
  • Your Customer is Calling: Make the Most of Your Marketing Spend with Call Tracking
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

h
Receive daily search news and analysis.

Channels

  • SEO
  • SEM
  • Local
  • Retail
  • Google
  • Bing
  • Social

Our Events

  • SMX
  • MarTech

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your privacy means the world to us. We share your personal information only when you give us explicit permission to do so, and confirm we have your permission each time. Learn more by viewing our privacy policy.Ok