A featured snippet is a direct answer Google pulls from a ranking page and displays at the top of the search results, above the first regular listing. It usually appears as a short paragraph, a bulleted or numbered list, or a table, depending on the question.
What it is
When a query has a clear factual answer, Google selects a passage from a page that already ranks well and surfaces it in a highlighted box, often called position zero. The page is credited with a link, and the snippet is lifted close to verbatim rather than rewritten. Lists and tables tend to win for steps, rankings, or comparisons, while paragraphs win for definitions and short explanations.
Why it matters
Featured snippets are the direct ancestor of AI Overviews. Both take an answer off a page and place it ahead of the links, and both can produce a zero-click result where the user reads the answer without visiting the source. The key difference is mechanism: a snippet quotes one page, while an Overview synthesizes several, and far more engines now do the synthesizing.
How to win one
Answer the target question in a single tight passage placed near a matching heading, format steps and comparisons as lists or tables, and keep the answer factually precise so it reads well out of context.