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What is featured snippet?

What a featured snippet looks like

It is usually a paragraph, a list or a small table, with a link to the page it came from. Google picks the passage, not you.

Snippets show up most on questions. What is, how do I, how long does, how much does. Plain questions with plain answers.

Some results show a list of related questions instead, which works in much the same way.

The page has to be in the results already, so a snippet is a way of showing a page rather than a shortcut past everything else.

You cannot make Google pick your page, and no tool can. What you can do is write a passage that would work if it were picked, which helps readers either way.

Why the shape of your answer matters

A passage can only be quoted if it makes sense alone. So the answer has to sit near the top, in a sentence or two, with no run-up.

The AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Google's AI answers work in a similar way. They read a page looking for a passage that stands on its own.

Headings do a lot of the work here. A heading that repeats the question tells both a reader and a machine exactly where the answer starts.

That makes format part of the work. Answer first, then explain, then show the detail underneath.

How to write a page that can be quoted

None of this is a trick. It is writing that respects the reader's time.

Then read the answer on its own, with the rest of the page hidden. If it still makes sense, a machine can lift it and a person can use it.

• Put the answer in the first two lines, in full sentences.
• Use the question as the heading, in the words people actually use.
• Keep the answer short, then expand below it.
• Use a list when the answer is steps, and a table when it is a comparison.
• Put the units, names and caveats inside the answer, not after it.

How Microsite Generator handles this

Pages are written answer-first. The agent asks about your business, then writes each page so the opening lines stand alone — that is the shape an answer engine can quote.

You keep control of the wording, so any opening line the agent drafts is yours to edit.

Nothing publishes until it clears the compliance gate, which checks the page against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards. Thin pages and near-copies do not pass.

The result is a set of individually built pages, each aimed at one question. Whether Google quotes any of them is Google's call, not ours.

Updated September 2026