In recent years, Google chose to offer Featured Snippets in order to give users the most relevant and up-to-date answers for their searches right away. While this did bring more ease for people, especially in case of queries via Google Assistant, there is one slight change that the company has decided to do with it and that is of not repeating the similar link on the first page of web results.
The update was confirmed by Google Search Liasion team on Twitter where they announced that the link included in Featured Snippets would no longer be duplicated in the other top results appearing on the first page. The decision of deduplication has been taken only for the links of Featured Snippets and its impact would also be only limited to the first page of web results.
Google is already working on decluttering results and help users find the exact information they are looking for more easily. Hence being part of the process, this move will ensure that the first page of results will have different 10 blue links, giving unique information. Repetition of the link from Featured Snippet makes things difficult for sites that have good content but struggle to come up into the top 10 of the first page on Google.
However, that being said, you won’t find cards/carousels like Top Stories, Interesting Finds, and videos getting deduplicated, so the rest of the functions on Google would remain exactly the same.
For the duplicated link, it can still appear on the second page of Google’s web results but that won’t still be intentional or a guaranteed placement by the search giant. So the best bet for sites making it to the Featured Snippet would be that users actually click the link given in the box, considering the content is that catchy or relatable.
The tweak in search results has already been made.
Read next: Chrome for Android Will Now Show Favicons of URLs in the Omnibox, As On Chrome for Desktop
The update was confirmed by Google Search Liasion team on Twitter where they announced that the link included in Featured Snippets would no longer be duplicated in the other top results appearing on the first page. The decision of deduplication has been taken only for the links of Featured Snippets and its impact would also be only limited to the first page of web results.
Google is already working on decluttering results and help users find the exact information they are looking for more easily. Hence being part of the process, this move will ensure that the first page of results will have different 10 blue links, giving unique information. Repetition of the link from Featured Snippet makes things difficult for sites that have good content but struggle to come up into the top 10 of the first page on Google.
However, that being said, you won’t find cards/carousels like Top Stories, Interesting Finds, and videos getting deduplicated, so the rest of the functions on Google would remain exactly the same.
Deduplication does not happen for video featured snippets. It does for a featured snippet-variant that may resemble a Knowledge Panel on desktop, to the right side of results. This will likely stop later this week and resume when those move inline with main results....— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 23, 2020
For the duplicated link, it can still appear on the second page of Google’s web results but that won’t still be intentional or a guaranteed placement by the search giant. So the best bet for sites making it to the Featured Snippet would be that users actually click the link given in the box, considering the content is that catchy or relatable.
The tweak in search results has already been made.
Read next: Chrome for Android Will Now Show Favicons of URLs in the Omnibox, As On Chrome for Desktop
