Mashed Up Featured Snippet w/ Links to 2 Different Sites

[Shepherd]

Just noticed an interesting featured snippet. google has always had a snippet with information from Wikipedia and a link to Wikipedia. Now they have the same information and link but they have added an image of a competitor's product and image link to their site in the snippet. I've not seen this before.

So in this particular snippet google is linking to 2 different sites.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:45 am (utc) on Apr 14, 2017]
[edit reason] Removed off-topic comment [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

"Search Engine Roundtable" reported on this as well...

Google Featured Snippets Now Sourcing Different Image From Content Source
Apr 13, 2017 - 8:52 am
by Barry Schwartz
[seroundtable.com...]

Google's featured snippets are now capable of using a different image source from the article content source it used for the answer....

Barry also noted a comment that relates to the kind of competitive situations that Shepherd alludes to, which are inevitably going to arise from this kind of mash-up...

One SEO said " I would hate my image to show up with someone else's content."

But this is also how it has worked for years for Top Stories or News box content showing an image from one site but content from another.

In the screen capture Barry posts, text source and image source are separately identified. I've tried the same search, and in the serp I see the image has changed from the one Barry posted.

I've had several text snippets (article excerpts) posted by Google, and Google seems to like trying them in different serp arrangements. None yet with images.

[Shepherd]

Seems odd that a factual statement contained within a topic that I started would be considered an "off topic" comment. If we are going to discuss something maybe we should take in all of the facts. Maybe every time this situation happens my "off topic" comment is a true variable but we wouldn't see the pattern because it was not allowed to be discussed.

[aristotle]

I'm confused. Is a "featured snippet" the same as an "answer box"? If not, what is the difference?

[Shepherd]

"featured snippet" is google's name for what most call the "answer box".

[aristotle]

"featured snippet" is google's name for what most call the "answer box".

Thanks shepherd -- Google's high-falutin name confused me.

[browndog]

I posted in the monthly update thread about this. I actually don't mind it, it means we now have two shots to get in the answer box. Sometimes I post an article, but just use a generic widget because I haven't got a specific widget to that particular topic. But my competitor may do so.

What I have actually been doing over the past few days is adding more images to my content, and trying to be a lot more specific in the images I use too by paying somebody to make one, or sourcing one online.

But, I can see how a commercial site may not appreciate having an image of a competitor in the answer box. Thankfully in my niche, we all generally don't mind each other. So I would be fine if it happened to me.

[browndog]

I just did a search for a very popular topic in my niche to see if a newly purchased image on my site has been taken yet (I did watermark it, so even if it's taken, there's a link to my site on it). My main competitor is there in the answer box, as they always are, but my image is next to their content. Loving it :)

[Robert Charlton]

My main competitor is there in the answer box, as they always are, but my image is next to their content.

Barry mentioned in the seroundtable article I'd cited above that this kind of thing might happen... and he predicted that some SEOs wouldn't be happy about it, but he also noted that this is how it has worked for years in "Top Stories or News box content", and everybody's survived. It could even be argued that it's giving two pages links up top rather than just one.

Keep in mind... Google has separate criteria for images in serps...

Over the years, we've had several threads here about Google's image choices in serps, in particular for image thumbnails in News content, and also for the thumbnails in recipe serps. Those were mature areas. This is brand new.

The news discussion in particular discussed a broad range of factors that might affect image inclusion, with regard to their labeling and positioning in relation to text, image size, aspect ratios, image file formats, etc, and how well they worked with Google's guidelines... at that time, years back....

Google News help - how to get thumbnails in news feed
Jan 2010
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4067802.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Some concerns still apply. Some don't. I added some thoughts about image composition, and how these images would work when resized as thumbnails, which I think might still ultimately be applicable.

There was also a question about whether performance in Google Image Search might be a factor. Again, this was about desktop pages, pre-mobile.

Today, the "featured snippets" (or "answer cards", as I too have tended to call them) are being extracted primarily to feed quick answers to short attention spans on small mobile screens. Among the requirements is that they work responsively, that they read quickly, and that they satisfy user intent.

I'm not finding any image submission guidelines now... but it would be helpful to know if there are any, should anybody see any.

Example images I've found recently are all set to work responsively on their source pages. Some images used were very popular in Google Image Search, but some weren't.

It's interesting that for the "how to" searches I tried, some images were purely diagramatic... answering "how to" do whatever... but one, having nothing to do with explaining the mechanics of the question, was a completely cutesy shot of a toddler... because The Answer was about teaching this to kids.

As I've noted, I'm seeing some images change over a short time for the same search, and I assume that Google is still sorting out what it is that works the best for various types of searches.

...search... to see if a newly purchased image on my site...

browndog, I think you're overly optimistic about how fast new images are likely to be ranked, and you're probably watching these serps way too closely. Google is going to go through a thousand changes on these. Try to look at these with a dispassionate eye, and to figure out what user needs Google's algos might be trying to satisfy with various choices of images.

IMO, choices are being made by the same kind of deep learning algo that powers RankBrain... and it's really just taking its first baby steps.