What is a featured snippet?
A featured snippet is a box near the top of Google's results that answers the query with a passage quoted from one web page, credited with a link. It appears for many question-style searches, such as "how long to steep cold brew" or "difference between latte and flat white".
Google chooses the page and the passage automatically; there is no markup that requests a featured snippet. Pages that already rank on the first page for a query are the usual candidates. On many informational queries, AI Overviews now appear above or instead of featured snippets, which has made them less prominent than they were.
How it works
Featured snippets come in a few formats:
- Paragraph: a 40 to 60 word definition or answer, the most common type.
- List: numbered steps or bulleted items, often pulled from HTML lists or headings.
- Table: comparison data pulled from an HTML table.
- Video: a YouTube video starting at the relevant moment.
Google looks for a passage that directly and completely answers the query. Clear structure helps: a heading phrased like the question, followed immediately by a concise answer, then detail. Since 2020, a page shown in a featured snippet is not repeated as a regular organic result on the first page.
You can limit or block your content from appearing: data-nosnippet on an element, or the nosnippet or max-snippet robots directives. These also affect normal snippets and AI features.
Example
A page targeting "how long to steep cold brew":
<h2>How long should cold brew steep?</h2>
<p>Steep cold brew for 12 to 18 hours in the refrigerator, or 8 to 12 hours at
room temperature. Shorter steeps taste lighter and more acidic; longer steeps
get stronger but can turn bitter after about 20 hours.</p>
The heading matches the question, the first sentence answers it, and the second adds the nuance. A table comparing steep times and flavor would suit a table snippet.
In WordPress
Featured snippets come from your visible content, so the block editor is where the work happens: Heading blocks phrased as questions, Paragraph blocks that answer them in the first sentence, and List and Table blocks for steps and comparisons. SEO plugins do not create featured snippets. Hydrogen SEO's clean server-rendered HTML and FAQ schema support make the structure explicit, but Google still picks the passage; see FAQ and HowTo schema.
Common mistakes
- Adding FAQ schema to win a featured snippet. They are separate systems.
- Answering only after several paragraphs of introduction.
- Using images of tables instead of HTML tables.
Common questions
How do I get a featured snippet?
Rank on the first page for a question query, then answer it directly and concisely right after a matching heading. Google selects the page; there is no way to request one.
Are featured snippets the same as AI Overviews?
No. A featured snippet quotes one page directly. An AI Overview is a generated summary that can draw on and link to several pages.