Do you ever notice that your rankings in Google Search Console shows you rank for a particular keyword phrase in position one but you can't figure out why. Sometimes it is related to regional rankings and you need to use the filters to narrow it down, but other times it can be related to featured snippets.
Glenn Gabe pointed out on Twitter last week that he has a access to a site in Google Search Console that shows a 1.4 position ranking in Google. He showed the dips and increases in that ranking and it was all related to that site having an image featured for a period of time in the featured snippet's image box. Yes, since 2017 Google began showing images from different sites for some featured snippets. I wonder what percentage of featured snippets show a different site than the featured snippet box itself (I would suspect it isn't too high).
Here is a random example of a featured snippet showing an image from a different site than what is used for the main featured snippet:
In any event, here is the chart Glenn shared:
So don't be confused when you see high positions reported in Google Search Console, sometimes digging into the regional or other filters won't give you the answer - sometimes it is a bit less obvious - like in the case of images being used in featured snippets.
Oh and to be clear, Glenn knows how the Google Search Console reporting tools work well, he is just pointing this out because people can easily be confused by it - which is why I am covering it as well.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
