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Snippet.
A snippet is the entry with which a page appears in Google's search results: usually a title, the URL or a breadcrumb, and a short description. Extended forms such as rich snippets or featured snippets show additional information.
Snippet — Explained in Detail
The snippet is a page's shop window in search. It helps decide whether anyone clicks. A standard snippet consists of the site name and favicon, the URL or a breadcrumb path, the blue title and two to three lines of description. Google usually derives the title from the title tag and the description from the meta description or from a fitting passage of text on the page.
Google is under no obligation to use what you supply. If the meta description does not match the query, Google shows a different extract; if a title is too long, too promotional or misleading, Google rewrites it. That is not a bug but a signal that the title or description does not summarise the page well.
An example: a page carries the title 'Welcome | Muster GmbH'. In the snippet, that title says nothing about the offer. Change it to 'Bathroom Renovation Winterthur: Process and Costs | Muster GmbH' and the searcher immediately understands they are in the right place. The position does not have to change for this; the higher click-through rate alone brings more visits.
Standard snippet, rich snippet, featured snippet
A rich snippet adds extra details to the standard entry, such as stars, prices, availability or event dates. It is based on structured data; whether Google displays it is Google's decision. A featured snippet is a highlighted answer box above the normal results that quotes a passage of a page directly.
Since Google started showing AI Overviews for many queries, an AI summary often sits above the snippets. For the snippets below it, a clear title and description matter even more, because they are competing with an answer that has already been given.
Optimising snippets
Good snippets follow three rules: the main term comes first in the title, the title stays under roughly 60 characters, and the description promises concretely what the page delivers, without exaggerating. If you find pages in Google Search Console with many impressions and a low click-through rate, that is where the quickest wins lie.
Titles and meta descriptions are among the points covered by our free SEO check. Revising them based on Search Console data is part of ongoing SEO.
Related Page
Free SEO CheckFrequently Asked Questions About Snippet
The entry for a page in the search results: title, URL or breadcrumb and a short description. It is a searcher's first encounter with your page and helps decide whether they click.
Because Google adapts the description to each query. If another passage on the page matches the query better, that passage is shown. The same happens when the meta description is missing, too short or identical across many pages.
Google truncates by pixel width, not by character count. As a rule of thumb, titles of up to around 60 characters are usually shown in full. More important than the exact length is that the main term comes first and the title names the offer clearly.
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