A featured snippet is a search result where Google reverses the usual layout, showing an excerpt from a page first and the link to it second. It answers the searcher’s question directly on the results page, usually as a short paragraph, a list or a table, and clicking it takes the user straight to the section of the page it came from.
On B2B searches, featured snippets are being crowded out by AI Overviews. In Ahrefs’ US data from October 2026, we checked 12 searches around SD-WAN and managed detection and response. Eleven showed an AI Overview. None showed a featured snippet. The skills that win snippets, such as short direct answers placed high on the page, still matter. They now help a page get quoted in an AI Overview more often than win the snippet box.
How Google chooses a featured snippet
Google’s featured snippets documentation says there’s no markup that marks a page as a featured snippet. Google’s systems decide whether a page would make a good one for a search, and if so, show it. What you control is how easy your answer is to lift.
| Format | Best for | How to write for it |
|---|---|---|
| Paragraph | Definitions and “what is” questions | Answer in the first 40 to 60 words under a heading that matches the question |
| List | Steps, processes and ranked options | Use a real numbered or bulleted list with one short item per line |
| Table | Comparisons, prices and specifications | Use an HTML table with clear column headings, not an image of one |
The setting that quietly blocks featured snippets
Google says a featured snippet only appears if enough text can be shown to make a useful one, and that the lower a page’s max-snippet setting, the less likely it is to appear. Google publishes no exact minimum length.
That setting can be switched on without anyone choosing it. On my own site, the SEO plugin was sending max-snippet:50 on every page, limiting Google to quoting 50 characters. Nobody had set it on purpose, and nothing in the page editor showed it. Check the robots meta tag in your page source before putting effort into winning snippets. The same limit restricts what Google can quote in AI Overviews.
Opting out on purpose
Some sites prefer not to appear in featured snippets, for example when a snippet answers the question so fully that nobody clicks. Google offers two routes:
nosnippetblocks all snippets for a page, featured and regular. It’s the only guaranteed option.- A low
max-snippetvalue keeps regular snippets but makes featured snippets less likely. Google says this doesn’t guarantee the page won’t appear.
Text inside an element marked with the data-nosnippet attribute won’t appear in any snippet. If a page has both nosnippet and data-nosnippet, nosnippet wins.
Featured snippets for B2B
The strongest targets on a B2B site are definition searches for industry terms and process searches for specific tasks. A glossary like this one is built for them. Before chasing a snippet, look at the search results page. If it shows an AI Overview and no snippet, write the same direct answer anyway: it’s what the AI Overview needs to quote you. If it shows a snippet that answers the question completely, weigh whether winning it will bring clicks or just a mention.
Common mistakes
- Burying the answer under an introduction, so there’s no clean passage near the top to lift.
- Showing comparison tables as images, which Google can’t turn into a table snippet.
- Leaving a low
max-snippetvalue in place from a plugin default. - Adding markup in the hope of triggering a snippet. Google says no markup does this.
- Targeting snippets on searches where an AI Overview has already taken their place.
Related terms
AI Overviews · Answer engine optimisation · SERP · Zero-click search · Structured data
