Google seems to have rolled out a new blue highlight feature for some featured snippets in the Google Search results. Google may highlight specific text that is important in answering your query, directly in the featured snippet result. Also, the font size of the featured snippets with blue highlighted text is larger than featured snippets without blue highlighted text.
What is looks like. Here are some screenshots of queries that generate the new blue highlighted text featured snippet in Google Search:
Previous tests. Back in September 2022, Google tested this feature with both yellow and blue highlighted text. It seems Google has gone with the blue highlights, as all the examples I have seen are in blue and not in yellow.
Why we care. Will featured snippets that highlight the answer more prominently with these blue highlights reduce the click-through rate from a typical featured snippet? Will these maybe drive more clicks because of the highlighted text?
You may want to audit some of your more popular featured snippets to see if you are noticing more or less traffic after this change – that is, if the change impacted your results.
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About the author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.