After a long test phase, Google updated its Snippets features and now redirects them directly to relevant text passages on a website.
As early as 2019, Google tested a different way of linking featured snippets: Instead of going to the top of a page, users should be redirected directly to the relevant section of a website that was used for the content of the snippet. Google employee Danny Sullivan has now confirmed the final introduction of this function on Twitter:
We’ve done this regularly with AMP pages since December 2018. We tested with HTML pages last year, as noted. We now do it regularly HTML pages, since last week. More info here: https://t.co/z0AP78h1qH
– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 3, 2020
The text passage already shown in the featured snippet is also highlighted in color on the underlying website.
By highlighting, the information you are looking for can now be found even better. (Screenshot: gsqi.com / t3n)
What do website operators have to consider?
The featured snippet is automatically forwarded to the relevant passage via the Scroll-to-text function for HTML pages. No additional markup is necessary. Site operators do not need to take any further measures to benefit from the innovation.
In further tweets, Google explains that only the browser used has to support the underlying technology.
There is no markup needed by webmasters. This happens automatically, using Scroll To Text for HTML pages https://t.co/cE9O2cBgKu. See also more background here: https://t.co/vKFmR3HLK3
– Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 3, 2020
In the associated Auxiliary document explains Google: If a browser does not support the technology or if Google cannot determine unequivocally where users should be redirected, they will still end up in the upper area of the source page.
For users, the update of the featured snippets is a relief. Scrolling and searching for the relevant text passages are no longer necessary. For site operators, however, this means that important page elements may be automatically skipped. CTA, buttons or ads may have to be repositioned.
Cornelia Erichsen
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