How Google’s featured snippets work (original) (raw)
Sometimes when you search on Google, you find a box with the answer right at the top. This box shows a little piece of a website that helps answer your question. It is called a "featured snippet."
You can find these featured snippets:
- At the top of the search results.
- In the "People also ask" section.
- Next to the Knowledge Graph information (information on the right side of the page).
These featured snippets are shown when Google thinks people want answers that can be found in a short piece of a website.
They’re helpful when you use a phone or talk to your device.
Usually, there’s only one box, but sometimes there can be more.
How Google chooses the featured snippets
The featured snippets come from websites that Google finds. It picks them based on how well they answer your question and how helpful they are. If you give Google feedback, it can learn to find even better answers.
Tip: If you’re a website owner, you can learn how to help Google show your website in these featured snippets.
Why featured snippets are removed
Sometimes, Google takes down a featured snippet if it doesn’t follow our policies.
To find the snippets that need to be taken down, Google uses reports from people like you. These reports help Google improve.
If a featured snippet breaks the rules, Google takes it down. Also, if a website has many snippets that break the rules, Google stops showing any featured snippets from that website.
How to report a featured snippet
If you find something wrong with a featured snippet, below the snippet, click Feedback. You can report if you think it:
- Doesn’t follow our policies
- Has wrong information
- Gives an answer that you don’t like
Tip: You can also provide positive feedback if the featured snippet is helpful to you.
Our policies for featured snippets
- Dangerous content
- Deceptive practices
- Harassing content
- Hateful content
- Manipulated media
- Medical content
- Sexually explicit content
- Terrorist content
- Violence and gore
- Vulgar language and profanity
Featured snippets also have an additional feature-specific policy that’s applicable:
- Contradicting consensus on public interest topics: Featured snippets about public interest content shouldn’t contradict well-established or expert consensus support. These include issues such as:
- Civic
- Historical
- Medical
- Scientific
- We may remove information presented as facts that lack supporting evidence if it accuses individuals or groups of serious malevolent acts.
Tip: These policies only apply to what appears as a featured snippet. They don’t apply to web search listings nor cause those to be removed.
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