Featured snippet
A featured snippet is a box at the top of Google's results that shows a passage from one page as the answer, with the link underneath.
A featured snippet is a box in Google's results that shows a passage from one page as the answer to a search, with the link to that page under it. Google describes it in its featured snippets guide as a result with the usual order reversed: the text comes first, and the page title follows.
It's the closest thing classic search had to an AI answer, and the habits that win one carry over well.
How a page becomes one
You can't ask for it. Google's systems decide whether a passage from your page would make a good featured snippet for a search, and show it if so. There's no markup that makes a page into one.
What you can do is write so that a passage is easy to pick. For example, a Kestrel Roasters guide with the heading "How long does ground coffee stay fresh?" and the answer in the first sentence under it gives Google a clean passage to show. The same guide with the answer in the middle of a long paragraph about storage tips gives it much less.
Opting out
If you'd rather a page didn't appear as one, Google's guide gives you three controls. The nosnippet rule stops all snippets for a page. A lower max-snippet value may stop the featured snippet while keeping a shorter regular one, though Google doesn't promise it will. And the data-nosnippet attribute keeps a piece of text out of any snippet.
Featured snippets and AI answers
A featured snippet shows one passage from one page. An AI answer usually combines passages from several pages and writes its own text around them. But both reward the same thing: a clear question, a direct answer straight after it, and text a machine can lift out without the rest of the page.
In AnswerOrbit, Page checks look for the prompt in a heading and an opening that answers it.