SEO glossary

Featured snippets

A featured snippet is a Google search result that reverses the usual format, showing an extract from a page first and the page's title link after it, near the top of the results. Google's systems pick the page and passage automatically when they judge the page a good answer to the query.

Reviewed by Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director
Last reviewed 31 October 2026

How do you get a featured snippet?

There is no markup for it, and Google says you can't mark a page as a featured snippet. What helps is stating the answer directly, close to a heading that matches the question, then adding the detail. Featured snippets also appear inside People Also Ask when a question is expanded.

Since January 2020, a page shown in a featured snippet is not repeated as a regular listing on the first page of results.

How to opt out

The nosnippet rule removes a page from featured snippets and from regular snippets. A lower max-snippet value makes a featured snippet less likely but doesn't guarantee it, and text marked with data-nosnippet is kept out of both.

How do featured snippets relate to AI Overviews?

They are separate features, but Google applies the same controls to both. Its AI features documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex limit what is shown there. Opting out of featured snippets with nosnippet therefore also takes a page out of AI Overviews. Google also says AI features need no special optimisation beyond normal SEO.

Example

A search for 'how long to boil an egg' might show a featured snippet quoting a cookery site's line on timings for soft and hard yolks, with its title link beneath. If that site added nosnippet to the page to stop being quoted, it would also become ineligible to appear in an AI Overview for the same query.