I’ve noticed a trend across a number of sites where the prevalence of featured snippets is dropping over time while AI overviews replace them. And that can obviously lead to a decrease in traffic since click-through rate from AI overviews is inherently going to be lower, and sometimes a lot lower. I haven’t seen this for every vertical, but it does seem that featured snippets are dropping for a number of them as AIOs surge. Below, I’ll cover how to check the prevalence of featured snippets for your site and niche over time to see how bad of a situation this is for your site.
The Rise of AI overviews:
The prevalence of AI Overviews has increased significantly over the past year and especially the past six months. We also know Google is working on bringing ‘AI Mode’ to the SERPs, and maybe soon. And in my opinion, it always felt weird to see both AIOs and featured snippets ranking in the same SERP. I have shared about this before… and I believed that Google could slowly drop featured snippets in favor of AIOs.
And I’ve also shared about the surge in AI overview prevalence over time (now at nearly 19% of queries).
This is also why it’s brilliant (in an evil way) to NOT provide site owners with AI overview OR featured snippet data in GSC (broken out). If you can’t filter that data in GSC, then you can’t easily see trending for those SERP features. And that means features could swap over time and many site owners would have no idea that’s going on. Of course, a drop in traffic from Google could be a sign this is happening since AIOs often contain a number of links to various sites while winning a featured snippet means you are the top dog. Again, click-through rate for AIOs can be much lower than featured snippets.
For example, I covered the loophole in Google Search where sites with manual actions were still ranking in AIOs. That meant sites with a manual action could see pure AI overview data in GSC. And then CTRs were not good compared to winning a featured snippet:
Wil Reynolds and his team at Seer also saw lower traffic levels when AIOs were present. You can read more about the study on their blog.
In addition, I shared recently that I surfaced AI overviews with 40+ citations… And Lily Ray saw similar AIOs with many citations. And all of those listings technically rank #1 in GSC since they take on the rank of the block in the SERP (as long as they are scrolled into view). But let’s face it, with 40+ links, how many people will actually click through to the destination websites? It’s hard to believe many would…
Featured snippets losing their feature: The evidence:
I checked a number of sites across verticals that have been stable from a ranking perspective over the past year or so. Then I checked the number of featured snippets that were appearing in the SERPs based on the queries they ranked for. I wasn’t just checking the featured snippets they rank for. Instead, I wanted to see the prevalence of featured snippets overall based on all of the queries they rank for. That would give me a feel for featured snippet prevalence for the niche and not just their specific site.
To see trending for featured snippets in Semrush, you should access the organic research reporting and click the Positions tab. That will show you all of the queries a site ranks for in the top 100 results of Google. Then click the SERP Features dropdown and select, “SERP Features on SERP”, and then “Featured Snippet”. Once you do, the reporting will show you the queries that yielded featured snippets in the search results based on all queries the site ranks for (and NOT just featured snippets for the site at hand.) You will also see trending over time. This enables you to see featured snippet trending over time for the niche versus just the site (at least based on all the queries that one site ranks for). You can repeat this for multiple sites in a vertical if you want to gain more data.
Here is what I saw based on Semrush and ahrefs data when checking sites across verticals:
And here is ahrefs data showing the number queries yielding featured snippets dropping over time. I’ll provide two examples below, but I saw this across many sites.
To view the number of queries yielding featured snippets based on all queries a site ranks for, enter a domain in ahrefs and then access the Organic Keywords reporting. Then click “More filters” and then “SERP Features”. Then click “On SERP”, and then click the checkbox for “Featured Snippet”. Finally, click “Apply” at the bottom to filter the results for any query that yields a featured snippet based on all the queries the site ranks for (even if the site at hand doesn’t rank as the featured snippet).
First, as of March 3, 2025 (839K queries yielded featured snippets):
Compared to September, 2024 (1.3M queries yielded featured snippets). That’s a 35% drop in queries yielding featured snippets.
Here’s another site. First, as of March 5, 2025 (132K queries yielded featured snippets):
And compared to September, 2024 (307K queries yielded featured snippets). That’s a 57% drop in queries yielding featured snippets.
And here are some screenshots based on queries that once yielded a featured snippet, but now just an AI overview.
Note, I just wanted to show a few examples, but I highly recommend going through this process for your site and niche. Again, I didn’t see this for all verticals… but I did for a number of them. Below, I’ll provide some tips for going through this process.
How to check the prevalence of featured snippets for your site and niche:
- Check when featured snippets show up for your site and niche by using the methods I explained earlier via Semrush and ahrefs. Make sure you check sites that have stable organic reporting throughout the timeframe. If not, then significant ranking impact due to algorithm updates could throw off the number of featured snippets the site ranks for (or the number of featured snippets showing in the SERP overall).
- Note, Semrush shows trending over time via live graphs, which is awesome.
- Ahrefs will also provide the number of queries that yielded featured snippets overall on the SERP (and not just tied to the site). That’s similar to what I explained about Semrush, but Semrush has live graphs showing trending over time based on your selection.
- Rank tracking your top queries could also reveal a drop in featured snippets over time (although that’s usually for a much smaller sample of queries than tracking featured snippets for all queries the site ranks for). That said, it’s another data point.
- Based on the data you gathered, spot-check the SERPs for queries that yielded featured snippets in the past to see if they are still there, or if AIOs replaced them.
- You can also export the data per month and then use vlookup in Excel or Google Sheets to identify which queries dropped out of the dataset over time. Then check the SERPs and see which SERP features are ranking.
Summary: Is Google swapping featured snippets for AIOs?
In my opinion, it makes sense that Google would decrease the number of featured snippets ranking when AI overviews are present. And to be crystal clear, I don’t like that at all, but having both featured snippets and AIOs seems like overkill. Also add that Google’s ‘AI mode’ is coming soon and I can see why Google may be preparing the SERPs for the AI overhaul.
In the meantime, I would go through the process I listed above and see what you find for your site and niche. That leak of traffic some sites are seeing could be the result of featured snippets dropping for many queries they rank for. And if that’s the case, then it’s important to understand that’s going on so you can communicate it across your organization (and to possibly plan for a larger switch from featured snippets to AI overviews). Good luck.
GG