Featured Snippets and Google's new expandable versions

Not all of Google's Search Enhancements are powered by the structured data.

Featured Snippets are one that isn't.

If you haven't seen them before, they are the blocks of content that Google shows above all of the search results. Typically they'll be a paragraph, table, or list of content that answers the question a searcher asked.

Even though they are called "snippets" they are different than the structured data powered Rich Snippets. Featured Snippets are awarded based on the content of the page and the quality of your store's website. They are difficult to get but they can drive a lot of high-quality traffic.

Last month Google released an update making Featured Snippets even more powerful.

Now they can include additional panels of information from different websites. Here's one example with the main, Cost, and Weight panels open (and Benefits still closed).

Google's expandable featured snippets

I'm only seeing these on mobile searches but Google is now rolling out updates to mobile first before the desktop search results.

I've always said that content is important for stores and with updates like this from Google, it's clear that Google places a lot of value on quality content.

Even though Featured Snippets aren't powered by structured data, there are still a dozen or so enhancements that are.

That's why if you aren't using JSON-LD for SEO yet, you should consider it.

You could be losing out on enhancements, traffic, and even sales without it.

It's been used and tested on thousands of stores now since it first launched in 2015.

Eric Davis

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Topics: Featured snippets Google Seo Structured data

Would you like a daily tip about Shopify?

Each tip includes a way to improve your store: customer analysis, analytics, customer acquisition, CRO... plus plenty of puns and amazing alliterations.