Google’s redesigned featured snippets answer your question four times without you ever leaving Search
You may not know what Google’s featured snippets are by name, but you’ve likely used the feature regularly when searching questions on the search engine. It’s a boxout that appears at the top of specific web queries, and it’s handy when you’re Googling a question. You’ll often be greeted with a pull-out from a website with the information Google thinks is most relevant to your question. Now, the company is experimenting with a change that may bring four options to your direct eye line when you ask your question.
According to a test spotted byWilliam Álvarezon Twitter (viaSearch Engine Land), it’ll sometimes show you four answers simultaneously without you having to scroll through the results. I wasn’t able to replicate this in Google myself, so it seems to be something that is only being tested on particular users. A similar experiment was spotted in April this year for desktop users, but this new test is specifically for mobile searches.
There are three different ways the feature has been spotted on mobile, and each has been detailed by SEO consultantBrodie Clark. The first takes up a lot of space on your screen with large cards that sit the width of the page with an answer in each. The second option is four cards in a 2x2 grid, with the answers being much more truncated than in the first, which will likely work for some searches with short answers but not for more complicated responses. The third option isn’t dissimilar to the first, but each card here is much slimmer to ensure more appear on the screen. Plus, this one only provides three options.
It’s likely this is a feature Google is testing to see which receives the most engagement, and there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see this change roll out to all users. That said, with so many variations of the redesign, we may see one of these appear across Google Search later.
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