For years, “position zero” was the prize. If you won the featured snippet, the box at the very top of Google with a short answer from your page, you could jump above the number one result without building a single extra link. Many of us wrote whole content strategies around it.
Now I hear two opposite opinions from business owners. Some say featured snippets are dead and AI Overviews replaced them. Others are still chasing snippets with the same old 40-word paragraph trick and wondering why it stopped working.
The truth is somewhere in between. Featured snippets didn’t disappear, but they now show up far less often, and the top of the page mostly belongs to AI Overviews. Let me explain what the data says, what changed in the rest of the results page, and how to adapt your snippet-style content so it still earns visibility in 2026.
What featured snippets did for websites before AI Overviews
A featured snippet is a highlighted answer that Google pulls from one web page and shows at the top of the results. Google’s own featured snippets documentation explains that it flips the usual layout: the descriptive text comes first, then the page title and link. When someone clicks, Google can scroll them straight to the matching part of the page.
That made snippets valuable for three reasons:
- One winner. A snippet showed one page. If it was yours, you owned the answer.
- A shortcut past rankings. Pages ranking in positions two to five could win the snippet with a clearer answer.
- Brand exposure. Even people who didn’t click saw your site name at the top.
Google never gave site owners a switch for it. The documentation is blunt about whether you can mark a page as a featured snippet: “You can’t.” Google’s systems decide. All you could do was write clear answers and hope. If you want the classic how-to, our older guide on making your content appear in Google featured snippets still explains the basics well.
How often featured snippets show up in 2025 and 2026
The best before-and-after data comes from Ahrefs. In a study published July 22, 2025, Ryan Law and Xibeijia Guan checked 1 million random US desktop search results in January 2025 and again in June 2025.
| SERP feature | January 2025 | June 2025 | Relative change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Featured snippets | 15.41% | 5.53% | −64% |
| AI Overviews | 3.93% | 27.43% | +598% |
| People Also Ask (“question”) | 73.73% | 79.13% | +7% |
| Discussions and forums | 19.49% | 20.26% | +4% |
Source: Ahrefs, 1 million US desktop SERPs, January vs June 2025. Only a selection of features is shown here.
In six months, featured snippets went from roughly one in seven searches to about one in eighteen. That is the biggest drop of any common feature in the study. In the same period, AI Overviews went from rare to more than a quarter of searches.
I haven’t found an equally large and transparent dataset for 2026 yet, so treat the June 2025 figure as the most solid recent number. For more numbers on the AI side, see my AI SEO statistics page.
How AI Overviews took over the top of the page
Ahrefs’ data shows a clear handover point. AI Overviews first appeared in August 2024 and grew slowly. Then, around Google’s March 2025 core update, they jumped. A separate Ahrefs study found the number of AI Overviews rose 116% between March 12 and May 6, 2025 (Ahrefs, May 13, 2025).
At the same time, featured snippets fell. Ahrefs measured a correlation of −0.9053 between AI Overview growth and featured snippet decline. That is a very strong link, though, as the authors say, correlation is not proof of cause.
“It seems very likely that AI Overviews have superseded Featured snippets.”
— Ryan Law, Ahrefs, Goodbye, Featured Snippets: How SERP Features Have Evolved in the AI Era
It makes sense when you think about the job each feature does. Both answer a question at the top of the page. A featured snippet does it by quoting one page. An AI Overview does it by writing a new answer from several pages. Google rarely needs both on the same search.
What this means for clicks
The swap is not neutral for websites. A featured snippet sent visitors to one page. An AI Overview spreads attention across several sources and often answers the question fully. Ahrefs’ February 4, 2026 update found that, with December 2025 data, an AI Overview was linked to a 58% lower CTR for the top organic result. I go deeper on this in my post on AI Overviews click loss.
Other SERP features that changed at the same time
Featured snippets weren’t the only feature to move. The same Ahrefs study shows the whole results page was reshuffled in the first half of 2025.
- Sitelinks jumped from 8.44% to 84.95% of SERPs. Ahrefs links this to “scroll-to” sitelinks, which point to sections within a page and now show on non-branded searches too.
- Shopping results fell from 3.14% to 0.99%, and paid ads in the sample fell from 1.95% to 0.91%.
- Local packs dropped slightly, from 3.48% to 2.96%.
- Knowledge panels dipped from 14.09% to 12.95%.
- People Also Ask grew a little, to 79.13%, so it is still on most results pages.
The sitelinks change is easy to miss but important. If Google now links straight to sections of your page, then clear headings and well-structured sections matter even more. That is the same skill that used to win snippets. For a full guide to every feature on the page, see our post on SERP features, and for the question boxes, People Also Ask.
Is featured snippet optimization still worth your time?
Here is my honest answer: as a goal on its own, mostly no. As a writing habit, yes. Let me explain with a simple decision table.
| Situation for a keyword | What I suggest |
|---|---|
| A featured snippet still shows, and you rank in the top 5 | Worth a targeted rewrite. The snippet is still a real prize here |
| A featured snippet shows, but you rank below position 10 | Fix rankings first. Snippets usually come from first-page results |
| An AI Overview shows, no snippet | Write for citation in the AI Overview, not for a snippet |
| Both show | Rewrite once for both; the same clear answer helps each |
| Neither shows (often commercial or local searches) | Focus on the click: title, meta description, offer |
The point is that the skills behind snippet wins are still useful. Answering a question in the first two lines, using clear headings, adding a tidy list or table: all of this helps AI systems too. What has changed is that you should stop measuring success only by whether you won the snippet box.
The data also suggests where snippets survive. AI Overviews show far less on commercial (4.3%), transactional (2.1%) and local (7.9%) searches, according to Ahrefs’ September 2025 data. I cover how to find those surviving opportunities in my guide to AI-proof keywords.
Do featured snippet winners also get cited in AI Overviews?
This is the question I get most, and I want to be careful here. I haven’t found a large public study that directly compares “pages that won the featured snippet” with “pages cited in the AI Overview” for the same keywords. So I can only tell you what the related data shows.
- AI Overviews mostly cite pages that already rank. Ahrefs found 76.1% of AI Overview citations came from Google’s top 10, and the top-cited URL had a median ranking of 2 (Ahrefs, July 21, 2025, 1.9 million citations).
- Snippets also come from top-ranking pages. So the two groups are likely to overlap a lot, simply because both draw from page one.
- The two features used to appear on the same kinds of searches. In an earlier Ahrefs study from October 31, 2024, keywords with AI Overviews triggered 849% more featured snippets than keywords without them.
- But AI Overviews cite several pages, not one. That means your page can be cited without being the “best” answer, and the old snippet winner can be left out.
In brief, a page that won a snippet probably has a good chance of being cited, but it is not guaranteed. The best evidence is your own: check a sample of your old snippet keywords and see whether you appear in the AI Overview now.
Adapting your snippet-style content for AI answers
Here is how I would update an old “snippet bait” page. The goal is to keep what worked and add what AI answers seem to prefer.
- Keep the direct answer near the top. One or two plain sentences that answer the main question. I explain this style in my post on answer-first writing.
- Add the “it depends” detail right after. Snippet answers were often too short to be useful. AI answers pull from pages that explain conditions, exceptions and examples.
- Cover the follow-up questions. AI systems often break a question into several smaller searches. Google’s AI features documentation calls this “query fan-out.” Use your People Also Ask boxes to find those follow-ups and answer each under its own heading.
- Use clear, specific headings. Scroll-to sitelinks and AI citations both point to sections. A heading like “How much does a new boiler cost in 2026?” is easier to match than “Pricing.”
- Add something the AI can’t invent. Your own prices, data, photos or examples. These make your page the source rather than one of many.
- Check your snippet controls. A
nosnippettag or a very lowmax-snippetvalue limits featured snippets and also limits what Google can show from your page in AI features. - Update the date only when you update the content. Freshness helps, but fake freshness can hurt trust.
“the shorter your max-snippet rule setting, the less likely the page will appear as a featured snippet.”
— Google Search Central, Featured snippets and your website
Before and after: one paragraph rewritten
Here is a simple example for a heating company. The old snippet-style answer: “A boiler service takes about one hour.” That was perfect for a 2020 snippet, but it gives an AI answer nothing new to cite.
The rewrite: “A standard boiler service takes 45 to 60 minutes. Older boilers, or ones that need a part replaced, can take up to two hours. Our engineers check the flue, gas pressure and safety devices, and you get a written report on the same day.” It still answers in the first sentence, but now it also covers the exceptions and adds detail only the business can give.
Tracking featured snippets and AI Overviews on your own keywords
Industry averages are interesting, but what matters is your keyword list. Here is a simple way to track it.
- Pick 30 to 50 keywords where you have won a featured snippet in the past, or rank in the top 5 for a question.
- Record the SERP features for each one every month: featured snippet (and whose), AI Overview (and whether you are cited), People Also Ask, sitelinks. Most rank tracking tools can log this for you.
- Add Search Console clicks and CTR for the same keywords.
- Look at the changes together. A drop in CTR the same month an AI Overview appeared tells a different story from a drop in rankings.
A simple monthly tracking sheet can look like this:
| Column | What to record | Why it helps |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword | The exact search phrase | Keeps the list consistent month to month |
| Your position | Organic ranking on the check date | Separates ranking problems from SERP layout problems |
| Featured snippet | None / yours / a competitor’s | Shows where snippets survive in your niche |
| AI Overview | None / shown, you cited / shown, not cited | Your real “position zero” in 2026 |
| Clicks and CTR | From Search Console for that month | Shows the business impact of each change |
| Notes | Page updated, new competitor, Google update | Explains jumps when you look back later |
A worked example (hypothetical numbers)
Say you track 40 keywords for a garden supply blog. In January 2025, you held the featured snippet on 12 of them. By January 2026, only 4 still show a featured snippet, and 22 now show an AI Overview. You are cited in 9 of those 22 AI Overviews.
Clicks on the 40 keywords fell from 5,000 to 3,100 a month. But when you look closer, the 9 keywords where you are cited lost less than the 13 where you are not. In this example, the action is clear: study what the cited pages do differently, and rewrite the other 13 pages using the steps above.
If you want more ideas on winning citations in Google’s AI answers, my guide to getting cited in AI Overviews goes step by step, and my comparison of AI Mode vs AI Overviews explains how the newer AI Mode differs.
Questions people ask about featured snippets and AI Overviews
Are featured snippets gone?
No, but they are much rarer. Ahrefs found they fell from 15.41% to 5.53% of US desktop SERPs between January and June 2025.
Did AI Overviews replace featured snippets?
The data strongly suggests so. As AI Overviews grew, snippets fell, with a correlation of −0.9053 in Ahrefs’ data. Both answer the question at the top of the page, so Google rarely shows both.
Can I still win a featured snippet?
Yes, on searches where Google still shows them. You need to rank on page one and give a clear, direct answer. Google says there is no markup that makes a page a featured snippet.
Does winning a featured snippet help me get into AI Overviews?
Probably, but it is not guaranteed. Both mostly use top-ranking pages, and 76.1% of AI Overview citations come from Google’s top 10, according to Ahrefs. No large study has compared the two directly.
Should I block featured snippets with nosnippet?
Usually not. The nosnippet rule also limits what Google can show from your page elsewhere in Search, including AI features.
What I would do with your old snippet pages this month
If you built pages to win featured snippets, don’t delete them and don’t leave them as they are. Check which of their keywords now show AI Overviews, rewrite the answers to cover the “it depends” detail and the follow-up questions, and track whether you get cited.
If you want help auditing your SERP features and updating your content for AI answers, our content writing team and SEO specialists can take it on. Get a free quote and we will show you which of your pages have the most to gain.
Further reading on featured snippets
- Claude Code for SEO: Practical Use Cases for Non-Developers and Teams
- From SEO Specialist to Search Visibility Lead: Skills for the AI Era
- Do AI Answers Cite AI-Written Content?
Sources for this featured snippets and AI Overviews guide
- Ahrefs – Goodbye, Featured Snippets: How SERP Features Have Evolved in the AI Era (Jul 22, 2025)
- Google Search Central – Featured snippets and your website (updated Dec 10, 2025)
- Google Search Central – AI features and your website (updated Dec 10, 2025)
- Ahrefs – AI Overview growth after the March 2025 core update (May 13, 2025)
- Ahrefs – What triggers AI Overviews, 300K keywords (Oct 31, 2024)
- Ahrefs – Search rankings and AI Overview citations (Jul 21, 2025)
- Ahrefs – AI Overviews reduce clicks, 2026 update (Feb 4, 2026)
- Ahrefs – What triggers AI Overviews, 146M SERPs (Nov 10, 2025)
