TL;DR
- What it is: one passage from one page, above that page's link. No markup creates one.
- Still worth it? Yes, on fewer pages. Ahrefs saw a 64% drop on US desktop in the first half of 2025.
- How to win one: rank on page one, check the results page, then answer first, in the snippet's format.
- How to check: Search Console has no snippet filter. Use a fixed query list or a rank tracker.
Does AI name your brand? Check your site.
You can't mark a page as a featured snippet.
Google's documentation says so.
So what can you do? Three things.
- Rank on page one for the question.
- Put the question in a heading.
- Answer it right under the heading, in the format Google shows now.
That's the method.
But check the results page first. The box shows up a lot less than it used to.
Ahrefs checked 1 million US desktop results pages.
Snippets fell from 15.41% to 5.53%. AI Overviews went from 3.93% to 27.43%.
So this post covers both. How to win the box. And what to do when the box is gone.
Each number has a source and a year.
What a featured snippet is
A normal result, flipped.
Google's documentation says the descriptive text comes first. The link comes after it.
The text is extracted from a single web page.
It shows in three places:
- At the top of the results
- Inside "People also ask"
- Next to Knowledge Graph information
Four formats: paragraph, list, table, video.
Is it still position zero
Not since January 2020.
Google stopped repeating the snippet's page as a normal listing.
Search Engine Journal reported the change on 22 January 2020. It quotes Google's Danny Sullivan:
"Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show."
Search Console counts it the same way. A snippet typically occupies position 1.
So "position zero" is a nickname now. It's the first result, in a different layout.
Are featured snippets still a thing
Yes. On fewer results pages.
The Ahrefs numbers again. 1 million US desktop results pages, January to June 2025:
- Featured snippets: 15.41% of pages, then 5.53%. A 64% drop.
- AI Overviews: 3.93%, then 27.43%.
Ahrefs found a correlation of about -0.9 between the two trends.
It notes that correlation is not causation. It still concludes that AI Overviews have very likely taken the place of featured snippets.
I agree with that reading. But it's one sample of US desktop pages.
Take this post's own query.
Ahrefs' SERP overview for the US, captured on 7 September 2026, shows this for "how to optimize for featured snippets":
- An AI Overview with six source links
- A box of four related questions
- No featured snippet
Results vary by time, place, device, and the searcher's history. So search it yourself.
The two question headings in this section come from that box.
That's the method. Read the related questions. Put them in headings.
| Featured snippet | AI Overview | |
|---|---|---|
| What it shows | A passage taken from one page, with the link | A generated summary with links to several pages |
| Where the source ranks | In the top 10: 99.58% of featured pages (Ahrefs, 2017) | In the first 10 blocks of the results page: 37.9% of cited URLs, or 37.1% counting blue links only (Ahrefs, 2026, 863K results pages) |
Rank first. Snippets have come from page-one pages. AI Overview citations are looser.
The writing work is the same. Google says AI Overviews need no special optimization beyond the usual SEO basics. It lists no extra technical requirements.
My view: a passage that can stand alone in a featured snippet is also a passage a summary can cite.
You do the work once.
Are featured snippets AI
No.
A featured snippet is a passage from one page.
An AI Overview is a multi-source summary from a model such as Gemini. And Google says Overviews often do not trigger.
Want to get cited in one? See how to rank in Google SGE. (SGE was the 2023 experiment before AI Overviews.)
Want to track them? See how to track Google AI Overviews.
How to find snippet opportunities
Three filters. In this order.
1. You rank on page one already.
Open the Search Console Performance report. List the queries with an average position from 2 to 10.
Position is an average across searches. So treat the list as a shortlist.
Sitebulb calls the queries where you rank 1 or 2 without the snippet the easiest wins.
2. Look at the results page.
Search the query. Write down five things:
- Does a snippet show?
- Its format
- The URL that holds it
- Does an AI Overview show?
- The related questions
Two tools do the first part in bulk:
- Ahrefs Site Explorer: open Organic keywords, set the SERP features filter to Featured snippet, set Position to 2 to 5. That's from Ahrefs' own guide.
- Semrush Position Tracking: its Opportunities tab lists keywords with a snippet that you do not hold.
3. The query is worth an answer.
Prefer questions where the next step is on your page.
Read the holder before you copy it.
Search Engine Land lists the signs of a weak holder:
- An outdated answer
- A vague definition
- A paragraph that is too long or too short
- Unclear steps
- A list that is not a real list
- A table with gaps
- A passage that makes no sense alone
See one of those? That's your opening.
Which queries show snippets?
Long, question-shaped ones.
From the Semrush and Brado study, November 2020:
- One-word keywords: 4.3% had a snippet.
- Ten-word keywords: 55.5%.
My reading: the queries that most often showed a snippet are the kind that now often show an Overview.
Read the related questions.
Semrush names two ways to target a related question:
- A dedicated page with the question as its title
- The question as an H2 in a longer post
What to do for each results page
| What the results page shows | What to do |
|---|---|
| A snippet held by another page, and you rank 2 to 10 | The best case. Copy its format. Write a clearer, complete passage under a heading that states the question. Request a recrawl |
| A snippet, and you rank below page one | Fix the ranking first. Featured pages came from the top 10 in Ahrefs' 2017 study (99.58%) |
| An AI Overview and no snippet | No box to take. This post's query showed this on 7 September 2026. Keep the short answer and work on being cited in the Overview |
| Only the related-questions box | Each question shows a featured snippet when a searcher expands it. Add the question as a heading on the page that ranks |
| Nothing | No format to copy. Pick one from the query: steps for a list, a comparison for a table, a definition for a paragraph. Expect no promise |
Does AI name you?
See if AI mentions your brand. Then get the pages to fix.
How to write the answer by format
Four rules. They apply to every format.
- Put the question in a heading. Use the words of the query.
- Answer in the first sentences under it. The box shows the answer alone. So it must make sense with no other text around it.
- Keep it short. Don't count words. Google publishes no minimum length. It says the minimum varies with the information, the language, and the platform.
- Keep the answer in text. Not in an image. Not in a widget that loads later.
The short answer is for the box. The rest is for the person who clicks.
Then match the format that the results page shows.
That mapping is from Seer. Treat it as a first guess. The live results page wins.
Paragraph
The most common format.
70% in the Semrush and Brado study of 1 million US mobile results pages with a snippet.
Semrush says to write the passage like a dictionary entry. No opinions.
The trap: a lead-in that delays the answer. See the edit below.
List
Steps? Use a real ordered list.
Items with no order? Use bullets.
Semrush says Google can compile a list snippet from headings spread through a page. So one clear H2 or H3 for each step can be enough.
Sitebulb advises a list of your H2 headings near the top of a long how-to page.
The trap: a list written as one block of text.
Table
Use a true HTML table. Put a clear H2 or H3 above it.
Sitebulb warns against an image or a widget.
Keep the columns consistent. Cover each point of comparison. Gaps there mark a weak holder.
The 2020 study averaged 6 list items and 5 table rows. Semrush says that is not a rule.
Video
Videos were 4.6% of snippets in the 2020 study.
Sitebulb's advice: upload to YouTube, not Vimeo. Add a descriptive title, chapters, and a summary.
One edit, before and after
Here is the edit on an example passage.
I wrote the text to show the change. It is not a tested result.
Before:
Featured snippets have been part of search for a long time, and marketers have many opinions about them. In this section we look at some background before we explain what they are.
Two sentences. No answer yet.
After, under a heading that says "What is a featured snippet?":
A featured snippet is a search result where Google shows a passage from one web page above the link to that page. Google's systems pick the passage. A site owner cannot mark a page up for it, but can opt out with the nosnippet rule.
The answer is the first sentence. And it makes sense alone.
Advice to check before you follow it
Several guides repeat the same tips.
Google's pages don't back them.
| Advice you will see | Who says it | What the sources show |
|---|---|---|
| Add FAQ or HowTo schema for snippets | Frase, Nightwatch, American Eagle | Google says you can't mark a page as a featured snippet. Since 2023, FAQ rich results show only for well-known government and health sites, and How-to rich results are gone |
| Write the answer in 40 to 50 words | Semrush, Frase, Similarweb, Search Engine Land, American Eagle | Google gives no minimum length. Semrush's own 2020 study gives 40 to 50 as a rough guide, not a rule |
| Never write in the first person, and avoid brand names | Moz, Frase | Not in Google's featured snippet page. Moz's reason is voice assistants. Keep the answer neutral anyway: it must stand alone |
| Rank on page one first | Semrush, Sitebulb, Seer, Moz | This holds up: 99.58% of featured pages ranked in the top 10 in Ahrefs' 2017 study. It is one old study |
One note on schema. It does no harm. Google says unused structured data does not cause problems for Search.
It is just not a documented way to win a snippet.
How to track featured snippets
Search Console can't tell you which featured snippets you hold.
Three reasons:
- No filter. Google's list of Search appearance filter types does not include featured snippets.
- Position 1 means two things. A snippet typically counts as position 1. An average position near 1 can be the snippet or the first normal result. The report does not say which.
- "People also ask" stays quiet. A result inside it gets an impression only when someone expands the question.
That leaves three methods.
1. A fixed query list.
Put your snippet queries in a sheet.
Each week, search each one. Same location. Same device class. Record what shows.
The header to copy:
query, date, snippet_shown, holder_url, format, ai_overview_shown, your_position
2. A rank tracker.
Semrush Position Tracking sorts keywords into seven tabs: Opportunities, Already featured, New, Lost, New on SERP, Lost from SERP, and URL changed.
Ahrefs Rank Tracker has a SERP features filter with a Featured snippet option.
More options: best rank tracking tools.
3. A site-wide trend.
Count how many of your ranking queries show a snippet. Watch that count over time.
Glenn Gabe's March 2025 post describes this with Semrush and Ahrefs.
One thing a snippet report doesn't show: what an AI answer says about your brand.
AI SEO Tracker does that part. Mentions and citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews.
It does not track featured snippets.
Featured snippet volatility
You can lose a featured snippet in two ways.
They need different responses.
1. Another URL takes the box.
The Semrush "Lost" tab lists keywords where your domain held the snippet at the start of the date range and not at the end.
Compare the new holder's passage with yours. Improve yours.
2. Google stops showing a box for that query.
The Semrush "Lost from SERP" tab lists keywords where the results page had a snippet at the start of the date range and has none at the end.
There is nothing to win back.
Check if an AI Overview took its place. And if your page is cited in it.
In 2025 the second type was probably common. The Ahrefs data above shows 64% fewer US desktop results pages with the feature.
Snippet traffic and conversion rate
Search Console does not separate snippet clicks from other clicks.
So any conversion figure for snippet traffic is an estimate.
The old click data is history. Ahrefs' 2017 study, on 100,000 keywords:
- A snippet at the top: about 8.6% of clicks.
- The result below it: about 19.6%.
That was before the 2020 change. And before AI Overviews.
Two things you can do with your own data:
- Use the dates in your log. Compare clicks and conversions for the weeks you held the snippet with the weeks you did not.
- Design for the landing point. A click on a featured snippet takes the visitor to the quoted passage when Google can find it on the page. Put the next step near that passage.
Your snippet optimization action plan
- Export. Get the Search Console queries where your average position is between 2 and 10.
- Search each query. Record the snippet, its format and holder, and whether an AI Overview shows. Use the table above.
- Write one passage for each query, on the page that ranks. The question as a heading. The answer first. The format of the current snippet.
- Check the robots meta tag for
nosnippetandmax-snippet. - Ask Google to recrawl the page.
- Log the same queries each week. Mark each loss as "taken" or "box removed".
- Box gone and an Overview shows? Move to citation work.
Common questions about featured snippets
How long does it take to get a featured snippet
No time is guaranteed.
Google must recrawl your edit first. It says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks.
The page must also hold its page-one ranking.
Can you opt out of featured snippets
Yes.
nosnippet blocks featured snippets and normal snippets for the page.
Google's robots meta tag reference says the rule also stops the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Featured snippets only? Google suggests a lower max-snippet value. With no guarantee.
Do you need schema markup
No.
Google says you cannot mark a page as a featured snippet. Its systems decide.
See the advice table.
