Featured Snippet drop – 19 February Google algorithm update

  On 19 February, MozCast reported a 40% decline in visibility for Featured Snippets, which plummeted to their lowest point since 2015. In many cases, Featured Snippets disappeared altogether and the impact was especially hard on health and finance queries.

Moz’s Dr. Peter J. Meyers published a blog post covering Featured Snippet visibility from February 10-23 with no signs of recovery.

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Delving into the data, Meyers saw that health queries experienced the biggest decline with a -68% drop in Featured Snippets while finance came in at a close second with a -60% decline.

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It turned out the biggest drops were seen for short queries, particularly single-word queries, and pages considered as YMYL were hit hardest (this explains the heavy hit on health and finance).

The key takeaway? Make sure you’re up-to-date with the latest on E-A-T and YMYL and update your content to meet Google’s expectations, especially if your pages qualify as YMYL.