Google’s right-sidebar featured snippets are no more

The right-sidebar featured snippet variant of Google search results has been migrated into the main results column, a Google spokesperson has confirmed. This change is the part of Google’s featured snippet deduplication, which began on January 22.

Mordy Oberstein, CMO of RankRanger, spotted the update had rolled out Thursday.

The screenshot above, taken before deduplication by SEO consultant at G-Squared Interactive Glenn Gabe, shows a right-sidebar featured snippet for the query “pulp fiction brett.”

This screenshot, taken after deduplication, shows the same featured snippet in the main results column.

Why we care

For those who used to own right-sidebar featured snippets, your URL now only appears once on the first results page instead of twice. Now that the feature is part of the main results column, other organic listings appear further down on the page.

Whether you own the featured snippet or another result on a page that has a deduplicated featured snippet, you should monitor your Google Search Console and Analytics reports to see how much of an impact this has on your traffic and click-through rates.

More on the news

• Prior to January 22, the URL for featured snippets would display twice on the first results page: once as part of the featured snippet and another time as a regular organic listing.
• During the initial deduplication rollout, featured snippets would continue to appear as usual but the corresponding organic listing would appear as the top position on the second results page. This is no longer the case and Google has clarified that it was not by design.
• Google temporarily stopped deduplicating right-sidebar featured snippets but did announce that it would eventually be moved to the main results column.

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.