Surveying the Featured Snippets

Looking at our list of domains with the most featured snippets we see the Wikipedia as the clear winner. What makes this list so interesting are those domains that make the cut even though they are not within the list of most Visible domains on google.co.uk. Let’s take a closer look at the data.

To get a good overview of how many Featured Snippets we are talking about for the Wikipedia, we added a small excerpt of the Featured Snippets in different Google country indexes.

Amount of Featured Snippets in different google country indexes

Top 100 Domains With the Most Featured Snippets

Now we get to the main question of which domains managed to join Wikipedia on the list of the 100 domains with the most Featured Snippets? The following list has the answer for google.co.uk:

Top 100 Domains with the most Featured Snippets
DomainAmountTopic Cluster
wikipedia.org351854Encyclopedias
youtube.com148290Video
webmd.com51919Encyclopedias
webmd.com51919Health & Lifestyle
healthline.com32435Health & Lifestyle
www.nhs.uk26794Health & Lifestyle
mayoclinic.org24122Health & Lifestyle
bbc.co.uk23038Online Newspaper
investopedia.com17280Finance
quora.com16347Encyclopedias
www.gov.uk16304Politics
ebay.co.uk15583Shops & Marketplaces
allrecipes.com14697Cooking & Co.
dictionary.com12743Dictionaries
nih.gov12252Health & Lifestyle
microsoft.com12218Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
study.com11405Know-How/Further Education
medicinenet.com10342Health & Lifestyle
bbcgoodfood.com9824Cooking & Co.
chron.com8860Online Newspaper
yourdictionary.com8814Dictionaries
food.com8633Cooking & Co.
techradar.com8180Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
babycenter.com8020Family & Living
merriam-webster.com7901Dictionaries
telegraph.co.uk7797Online Newspaper
livestrong.com7510Health & Lifestyle
everydayhealth.com7206Health & Lifestyle
stackexchange.com7137Forum
apple.com7075Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
wikia.com6950Forum
allrecipes.co.uk6920Cooking & Co.
foodnetwork.com6747Cooking & Co.
thebalance.com6735Finance
techtarget.com6728Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
amazon.co.uk6408Shops & Marketplaces
draxe.com6261Health & Lifestyle
medscape.com6234Health & Lifestyle
moneysavingexpert.com6033Finance
amazon.com5783Shops & Marketplaces
medlineplus.gov5483Health & Lifestyle
verywell.com5437Health & Lifestyle
britannica.com5266Encyclopedias
theguardian.com5254Online Newspaper
medicalnewstoday.com5133Health & Lifestyle
thefreedictionary.com5005Dictionaries
payscale.com4879Finance
pcadvisor.co.uk4874Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
jamieoliver.com4868Cooking & Co.
instructables.com4862Forum
sfgate.com4729Online Newspaper
office.com4727Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
google.com4670Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
stackoverflow.com4611Forum
huffingtonpost.com4569Online Newspaper
dummies.com4567Fachwissen/Weiterbldung
cdc.gov4451Health & Lifestyle
thespruce.com4375Health & Lifestyle
pcmag.com4316Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
ebay.com4260Shops & Marketplaces
prospects.ac.uk4103Job & Carreer
livescience.com4081Know-How/Further Education
vocabulary.com4023Know-How/Further Education
holiday-weather.com3973Weather
imdb.com3918TV & Movies
cnet.com3853Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
independent.co.uk3810Online Newspaper
kidshealth.org3728Family & Living
bodybuilding.com3720Fitness
moneysupermarket.com3569Finance
thoughtco.com3546Know-How/Further Education
lifehacker.com3532Other
lifewire.com3500Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
howtogeek.com3426Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation
emedicinehealth.com3402Health & Lifestyle
taste.com.au3370Cooking & Co.
thekitchn.com3369Cooking & Co.
ndtv.com3364TV & Movies
uswitch.com3283Comparison Portal
familyhandyman.com3155DIY
rd.com3118Health & Lifestyle
cancer.org3094Health & Lifestyle
gardeningknowhow.com3088Family & Living
thesaurus.com3003Dictionaries
authoritynutrition.com2990Health & Lifestyle
allaboutvision.com2964Know-How/Further Education
boots.com2957Shops & Marketplaces
epicurious.com2897Cooking & Co.
spine-health.com2858Health & Lifestyle
moneyadviceservice.org.uk2853Finance
parents.com2831Family & Living
americanpregnancy.org2782Family & Living
diynetwork.com2751DIY
marthastewart.com2731Cooking & Co.
tasteofhome.com2728Cooking & Co.
hgtv.com2715Family & Living
biography.com2700Other
gamespot.com2622Other
ign.com2550Other
pcworld.com2528Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation

It is interesting to see that no travel related website manages to break into the Top 100 – while there are a few on google.de (please see our German blogpost “Die Vermessung von Featured Snippets” for all the data).

Best Practice: Top 10 Domains by Featured Snippet Categories

Which are the most successful domains? For this question it is quite useful to look at the Top 10 domains for each Featured Snippet category: Text, Video, Lists and Tables.

Top 10 Domains with the most Text Featured Snippets
DomainAmount
wikipedia.org303795
webmd.com38781
healthline.com23551
www.nhs.uk19839
investopedia.com16551
mayoclinic.org14871
quora.com14850
bbc.co.uk14689
dictionary.com12650
www.gov.uk11284

It becomes quickly apparent that health related topics seem to make for a lot of textual Featured Snippets in the UK. And Wikipedia overlooks everything with close to twice as many text snippets as the rest of the Top 10 combined.

Top 2 Domains with the most Video Featured Snippets
DomainAmount
youtube.com142594
theguardian.com10

When it comes to videos the Guardian pretty much rates a poor second after Youtube which takes home 99.99% of these Featured Snippets.

Top 10 Domains with the most List Featured Snippets
DomainAmount
wikihow.com35122
wikipedia.org24860
webmd.com12917
mayoclinic.org9053
healthline.com8846
allrecipes.com8844
ebay.co.uk8028
food.com7302
www.nhs.uk6918
bbc.co.uk6825

Wikipedia has to take a backseat to wikihow.com and it seems that receipies and health topics make for good lists. Especially interesting is the result for allrecipes.com which has “just” 24,64 Visibility points, making it a domain that will not show up in the most visible domains for google.co.uk.

Top 10 Domains with the most Table Featured Snippets
DomainAmount
wikipedia.org23199
www.gov.uk2285
bbc.co.uk1524
moneysavingexpert.com1373
wikia.com1218
payscale.com1184
imdb.com959
ign.com941
gamespot.com673
moneysupermarket.com632

Featured Snippets and Topical Clusters

If we cluster the data by topics and look only at the averages, then outliers can have a large impact on the results. For this reason we also included the median values in this table:

Topic(s)Average Amount Featured SnippetsMedian Featured Snippets
Encyclopedias (4)106.34634.133
Computer, Tech & Telecommunikation (11)56974727
Dictionaries (5)73916909
Politics (1)16.30416.304
Shops & Marketplaces (5)69985783
Health & Lifestyle (19)11.6296261
Know-How & Further Education (6)50974052
Online Newspaper (6)81994991
Family & Living (6)38602806
Video (2)71.30271.302
Cooking & Co. (11)60714868
Weather (1)39733973
Comparison Portal (3)48703426
Finance (8)68326384
Forum (4)58905906
DIY (2)29532953
Job & Carreer (1)41034103
TV & Movie (2)36413641
Other (4)28512625

Wikipedia makes for the huge average for encyclopedias and Youtube does the same for videos. The larger clusters such as Computers, Finance and Cooking show a pretty even spread.

Conclusion

Google has not yet let anyone in on their secret of how to get a Featured Snippet but knowing which domains already have them is of great help. With this knowledge you can try to find keyword opportunities where you might want to try to create a better featured snippet or evaluate those of other domain in order to create your own hypothesis of how and when Google decides to show one.

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