Google Featured Snippet Callouts, False Premises, MUM & More

Google has launched some improvements to featured snippets, about this result and the content advisories in Google Search. MUM now works with featured snippets to help Google understand the notion of consensus and then highlight words in the featured snippets, known as callouts.

I dug deep into this on Search Engine Land, so here is the short version.

Featured Snippet Callouts & MUM for General Consensous

Google featured snippet callouts, the word or words called out above the featured snippet in a larger font, now can be powered by MUM (which is a new and rare use of MUM in search) to check what other sources are saying about the topic. Google said, “our systems can check snippet callouts against other high-quality sources on the web, to see if there’s a general consensus for that callout, even if sources use different words or concepts to describe the same thing.” “We’ve found that this consensus-based technique has meaningfully improved the quality and helpfulness of featured snippet callouts,” Google told us.

Here is what it looks like:

And Pandu Nayak, Vice President of Search and Fellow, Google, told us that it is hard to game consensus here because featured snippets come from the top search results and those generally are not low quality.

Featured Snippet & People Also Ask False Premise Queries

False premise queries are when a specific query is for information about things that did not happen. Google will show you information that is accurate and remove the false part from the featured snippet in this case. In fact, Google said they have “reduced the triggering of featured snippets in these cases by 40% with this update.”

So if you ask [when did snoopy assassinate Abraham Lincoln] – snoopy did not do that but Google will tell you who did:

This also works for people also ask, because those are built using featured snippets.

About This Result

About this result which launched in February 2021 have been used more than 2.4 billion times Google said.

Google is expanding it to eight more languages including Portuguese (PT), French (FR), Italian (IT), German (DE), Dutch (NL), Spanish (ES), Japanese (JP), and Indonesian (ID), coming later this year.

Plus Google is expanding what it shows in the about this result, adding such as how widely a source is circulated, online reviews about a source or company, whether a company is owned by another entity, or even when our systems can’t �find much info about a source.

Content Advisories Expand

Content advisories launched in 2020, which tells searchers when Google is not so confident with the search results it is presenting. Well, Google is going to show more of that.

Google said it is expanding content advisories to searches where its systems “do not have high confidence in the overall quality of the results available for the search.” Google said this does not mean that there no helpful information is available, or that a pa�rticular result is low-quality. “These notices provide context about the whole set of results on the page, and you can always see the results for your query, even when the advisory is present,” Google added.

Here are some of the SEO takes on Twitter:

Big news. Google is now using MUM to improve features snippets based on understanding if there’s a consensus across multiple high-quality sources on the web. Its systems can check snippet callouts based on that. Also, AI models can understand when a FS isn’t helpful to display… https://t.co/t2OnAVOPaI

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022

And more: Google is expanding “About this result” -> “We’re adding more context, such as how widely a source is circulated, online reviews about a source or company, whether a company is owned by another entity, or even when our systems can’t find much info about a source.” https://t.co/t2OnAVxeja

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022

And Google is expanding content advisories based on the quality of the results: “We’re expanding content advisories to searches where our systems don’t have high confidence in the overall quality of the results available for the search.”

Check Barry’s post for more info: https://t.co/t2OnAVxeja

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022

“our systems can now understand the notion of consensus, which is when multiple high-quality sources on the web all agree on the same fact. Our systems can check snippet callouts (…) against other high-quality sources on the web[…]” https://t.co/iaeJFS7FK3

— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) August 11, 2022

The irresistible rising of MUM ⬇️⬇️ https://t.co/trHodHFwr6

— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) August 11, 2022

Google will be using MUM to improve featured snippets.

⭐️MUM understands the notion of consensus (several high quality sources agree)
⭐️Google now checks “snippet callouts” – the words bolded at the top of a f.s. against other high quality sources to see if there is consensus. pic.twitter.com/WBIH52rFZ7

— Dr. Marie Haynes???? (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022

As an added point of interest, the Quality Raters’ Guidelines mention the importance of aligning with expert consensus in a few places. pic.twitter.com/2JfVSfiJdL

— Dr. Marie Haynes???? (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022

For questions where there is no answer, AI is helping Google decide when there should *not* be a featured snippet. pic.twitter.com/vJGQWK4Lsp

— Dr. Marie Haynes???? (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022

Forum discussion at Twitter.