# What is Featured Snippet? Featured Snippet, explained

> Position zero — the answer above the links.

A featured snippet is the boxed answer Google shows above the blue-link list — paragraph, list, or table — sourced from a single page. Featured snippets predate AI Overviews and are still the workhorse AEO surface in classical SERPs. Optimizing for them is the prototype for optimizing for AI Overviews.

## How Featured Snippet differs from AEO, PAA, SERP

A featured snippet is a single source extracted verbatim. An AI Overview is multiple sources synthesized into a generated paragraph with citations. Featured snippets reward extractability; AI Overviews reward citability.

## How Mentionwell handles Featured Snippet

- Question-led H2s with a 40–60 word direct answer immediately below — the canonical featured-snippet shape.
- Lists and tables for 'how to' and comparison queries.
- Clean semantic HTML so extractors can lift the snippet without parsing layout chrome.

## Frequently asked questions about Featured Snippet

### What is a featured snippet?

The boxed answer at the top of a Google SERP — paragraph, list, or table — extracted from a single ranking page. Also called 'position zero'.

### How do I win a featured snippet?

Lead the answer in 40–60 words directly under a question-formatted H2, use lists or tables when the query calls for them, and rank in the top 10 — Google only pulls snippets from page one.

## See also

- [AEO — Answer Engine Optimization](https://mentionwell.com/aeo): Be the answer.
- [PAA — People Also Ask](https://mentionwell.com/paa): The expandable question stack.
- [SERP — Search Engine Results Page](https://mentionwell.com/serp): The result page — now part-AI, part-links.


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Canonical URL: https://mentionwell.com/featured-snippet
Live HTML version: https://mentionwell.com/featured-snippet
Site index for AI ingestion: https://mentionwell.com/llms.txt
Full reference: https://mentionwell.com/llms-full.txt