What is a featured snippet?
A featured snippet is the boxed answer Google shows at the very top of results, lifted directly from a page to answer a query without a click.
In plain English
Google pulls a concise paragraph, list, or table from a page it judges to answer the question best, and displays it above the normal results (“position zero”). You win them by answering the question directly and early on the page, in a clean, liftable format.
Why it matters for AI search
The same answer-first, easily-extractable writing that wins featured snippets is exactly what gets you quoted by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. Optimising for snippets is optimising for AI citation.
Frequently asked
Answer the target question in one clear sentence right after a matching heading, then expand. Use lists and tables where the query implies steps or comparisons.
Sometimes fewer (the answer is on the SERP), but they build authority and are a strong signal you're the best answer, which helps AI citation.
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