Just a few days ago, Google implemented a change so that websites with featured snippets will no longer be repeated in regular Page 1 organic listings.
Previously, from my understanding, Google would automatically create featured snippets from key information from high-ranking search pages, such as lists of information to answer specific queries. For example, a google search of "digital marketing tips" would return a featured snippet from HubSpot with a list of bulletpoints. This would be followed by the regular listing of HubSpot's digital marketing tips page as the number one search result.
After the change, HubSpot's number one listing was effectively merged with the snippet, and the new number one listing is a post from lyfemarketing.com. Google says that this change was meant to deduplicate results to lessen clutter on the first page, and the website with the featured snippet will still appear on Page 2.
From a user's standpoint, this certainly makes sense, however from a business standpoint it seems that the deduplication may lead to a significant loss of organic search traffic. Whereas before they would have both a snippet and a listing driving traffic to their websites, now only the snippet remains. And because key information is already displayed in the snippet, it's possible that users may simply scan the information on Google instead of visiting the actual page. There may also be users who don't normally click through on snippet links and opt for regular listings instead.
It will be interesting to see how the SEO community responds to this change and if there is a way to take advantage of the new listing system, or if they will now need to take measures to prevent their websites from getting featured snippets.
Link to the article: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-web-pages-in-featured-snippets-not-repeated-in-organic-listings/344748/#close
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