Why it matters to a buyer
A featured snippet puts one page's answer in the most visible spot on the results page, and for some questions it satisfies the searcher without a click. Whether that is good for you depends on the query: for a definition it may cost clicks, for a process or comparison it often earns them. On many queries an AI Overview now sits above or instead of the snippet, so a buyer should ask how both are being tracked rather than treating the snippet as the prize.
How it is measured or applied
Google says there is no markup to request a featured snippet. Pages that win them usually phrase a heading as the question, answer it in the next forty to sixty words, and use a clean list or table where the answer is a set of steps or values. Site owners can limit snippets with the nosnippet or max-snippet controls, though doing so also limits use in AI features. Wins are tracked in rank tracking tools that record which page holds the snippet for each target query.
Sources
- Featured snippets and your website, Google Search Central
