Google wants to improve its search results. Design the ranking systems to display relevant information from the most trusted sources available – sources that demonstrate expertise, authority and reliability – says Google. Now the featured snippets should get better too.

Featured snippets are the descriptive boxes at the top of the page that mark some of the information from a result and the source as an answer to your question. They are useful for both Google searchers and web publishers, as featured snippets increase traffic to websites, the company says.

Using a new AI model called the Multitask Unified Model (MUM), Google’s systems can now understand the notion of consensus, i.e. multiple high-quality sources on the web all agree on the same fact.

Systems can compare snippet callouts (the word or words displayed above the featured snippet in larger letters) with other high-quality sources on the Internet to see if there is a general consensus for that callout, even if the sources are different. describe the same. This consensus-based technique was found to significantly improve the quality and usability of featured snippet callouts.

AI models also help systems understand when a featured snippet isn’t the most convenient way to present information. This is especially useful for unanswered questions. Google gives an example: a recent search for “when did Snoopy kill Abraham Lincoln?” provided an excerpt with an exact date and information about Lincoln’s assassination, but this is clearly not the most convenient way of displaying this result.

The systems are trained to better recognize these kinds of false premises, which, while not very common, are cases where showing a featured snippet doesn’t help. Such requests can reduce ad activation by 40%.

Also new: “About this result” allows users to learn more about the context of a search result, even before visiting a web page, by simply tapping the three dots next to the result (see our screenshot above). Since its launch last year, users have used “About This Result” more than 2.4 billion times, and Google will roll it out to German and more later this year.

Add more context to ‘About This Result’ this week, e.g. B. how widespread a resource is, online reviews about a resource or company, whether a company is owned by another company, or even if Google’s systems don’t have much information about a resource – any information that can provide important context.

Red hot topics also need to be better addressed. Sometimes the interest in a current topic is greater than the facts, or there is not enough reliable information online about a particular topic. Google then points out that a topic is currently under development and prompts users to re-examine it later. This is also shown in the graph above this section.

This article contains affiliate links, so we mark it as advertising. Clicking on it will take you directly to the provider. If you decide to make a purchase there, we will receive a small commission. The price will not change for you. Thank you for your support!