Study: Google Featured Snippets Are More Consistent Than I Thought

Feb 22, 2019 - 8:00 am 0 by
Filed Under Google

Champagne Google

The folks at RankRanger came out with a study around Google's featured snippets that shows that on average a featured snippet from a specific site will only be swapped out with a different site but it is rare for it to be swapped out to a third site. Even more, the dominant URL will show 77% of the time, as opposed to the second URL.

This all means to me that featured snippets and their placements are more consistent than I thought.

I covered this yesterday at Search Engine Land with the title Coveted featured snippet space is more exclusive than you think, study shows.

Here is Mordy's tweet on the study:

Now, don't get me wrong, a 3rd URL can show, the featured snippet in its entirety can disappear also. But this study is pretty interesting.

Google oscillates between two URLs within a given Featured Snippet (a bit under 2 over a 30-day period and a bit over 2 URLs during a 90-day period). The data also showed that over a 30-day period Google made just over two changes to the URL within the average Featured Snippet.

One URL clearly takes up the vast majority of Featured Snippet market share, specifically over 77% of it. The second, or "alternate" URL (as will be referred to in this post), is present but 23% of the time during the average month.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Confirmed: Google Ads Errors & High Latency Issues

Jul 2, 2025 - 7:55 pm
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 2, 2025

Jul 2, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Updates

Google June 2025 Core Update Volatility Just Began - Do You See It?

Jul 2, 2025 - 8:35 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

July 2025 Google Webmaster Report

Jul 2, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google On Links & Core Updates

Jul 2, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Places Copilot Search As First Tab & Replaces All With Web

Jul 2, 2025 - 7:31 am
Previous Story: Google Adjusts Algorithms For Categories Of Queries But Not For Industries