Is optimizing the featured snippet near the top of your list of things to do SEO? If so, you may want to reconsider the size of your priorities. This is because the number of search engines displayed in the Google SERPs is still declining, according to data released by Kevin Indig, director of SEO at Shopify. The data was provided to Indig by SEO software provider Rank Ranger. Since research is a zero -sum game, what happens when the pieces are reduced? This will be a People Also Ask (PAA) box. What the data show.
Indig analyzed three years of data (June 2018 to June 2021), looked at a sample of more than 100,000 keywords, and the percentage of SERP features displayed for those keywords, in desktop and mobile search. Two interesting findings: As the whatsapp phone number list number of featured particles decreased, the number of PAA boxes increased. This change began in March 2020 and is available on desktops and phones. The PAA box has 10x more SERPs - 65 percent vs. 6 percent in June 2021. Moz’s MozCast feature shows a larger figure now (92.1 percent for PAA, 7.9 percent for fractions) .
You can read Kevin’s full analysis here. Why do we care? Because changes like this affect daily SEO work and can even lead to unexplained changes in traffic. Many tools allow you to keep track of the number of featured snippets you win or lose-and getting a featured snippet can mean more visibility in the SERPs. With fewer clicks, however, this can affect the amount of traffic you get, as well as your organic click-through rate. Does that mean you can ignore the highlighted details completely? No. It just means: know how much time you spend on improving your own liver to get the pieces featured. As with everything, your response will vary depending on your market and the keywords you compete for.