When you’re going on a date or attending a job interview, you want to present the best version of yourself. You don’t rock up in a crinkled shirt with hair that hasn’t seen a brush in days. You choose your most suitable outfit, style your hair, and shine your shoes.
This is the difference between a search engine result with a rich snippet and a search engine result without one.
With a rich snippet, your results show themselves in their best possible light.
This can increase click-through rate. Google highlights several examples, including Rotten Tomatoes, which measured a 25% higher click-through rate on pages enhanced with structured data, and Nestlé, which measured an 82% higher click-through rate for pages appearing as rich results.
Structured data can also help search engines understand the content of a page, but it is not a direct ranking factor and does not guarantee higher rankings.
Are your website results ready to get glammed up? Here’s how.
Rich Snippets Explained
A rich snippet is also sometimes known as a rich result.
The two terms are often used interchangeably, although Google generally uses “rich result” in its official documentation. Rich snippets feature in regular search engine results as additional information.
While regular search engine results include the site’s URL, meta title and description, with rich results users will see all of these things plus additional information provided through your page content and structured data. Google ultimately decides whether and how to display this information, such as:
- Product availability
- Delivery times
- Star ratings
- Upcoming events
Do Rich Snippets Help SEO?
Rich snippets make your search engine results more attractive to the user.
The first result shown here has no rich snippet, while the second result has a star rating, votes and an indication of how long the recipe takes.
Despite appearing further down the page, the second result may attract more attention because it displays ratings, votes and preparation time before the user clicks. This potential benefit is supported by Google’s structured data case studies, which include reported click-through-rate improvements for pages appearing with enhanced search features.
But can they actually improve your ranking?
Not directly. Google does not identify structured data as a direct ranking factor.
Rich snippets are achieved using structured data, which helps search engines gain a better understanding of web pages.
This improved understanding can help a page become eligible for relevant search features, but it does not guarantee that the page will rank higher or receive a rich result.
Examples of Rich Snippets
There are many different types of rich snippets, all of which give the user more information about your website. Depending on what type of website you have, or the content on your page, the type you select will differ.
Rich Snippets for Products
For product pages, rich results can include the product price, availability, ratings and an image. Eligible merchant listings may also display delivery or shipping information.
All of these additional pieces of information provide the user with the insight they need to know whether it’s worth clicking on the link, helping your site get more traffic.
The rich snippet in this product example reveals the product price, a star rating, stock information and an image.
Rich Snippets for Recipes
Recipe pages can be marked up for rich snippets, which can show recipe ratings, reviews, duration and calories.
Rich Snippets for Events
Rich snippets for events can include information such as event dates, times and locations.
They might also include an image to draw further attention to the search result and make it more visually appealing to users.
AI Overviews are also changing how some search results are presented.
For example, a search for upcoming London concerts displayed a prominent Event rich result in 2024.
A similar search in 2026 returned an AI Overview in the same prominent area. This does not mean Event rich results have disappeared, but it shows that AI-generated answers can now take priority for certain searches.
An Ahrefs analysis of one million US desktop search results found that between January and June 2025:
- AI Overview visibility increased from 3.93% to 27.43%.
- Featured snippet visibility decreased from 15.41% to 5.53%.
- The decline in featured snippets had a strong negative correlation with AI Overview growth.
How to Get Rich Snippets
Are you ready for your website’s search results to have a makeover? Follow these steps:
Structured Data Markup
The first step in getting rich snippets is to mark up your data. You can do this using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper, which makes it easier to mark up your site without having to fully understand the code.
Google supports JSON-LD, Microdata and RDFa. JSON-LD is generally recommended by Google because it is usually easier to implement and maintain.
- Enter Your URL. Enter the URL of the page you want to mark up in the provided field. If your website is not publicly available, you can paste your existing HTML code directly into the box. Select the data type that best matches the content of the page.
- Start Tagging. Click the “Start Tagging” button to load the page in the Markup Helper.
- Tag Your Content. Highlight the relevant information on the page and select the property it represents.
- Add Missing Information. If required information cannot be highlighted on the page, use “Add missing tags” and enter the appropriate value. Only add information that accurately represents the visible page content.
- Fill in Prompts. You will now have the option of marking up various parts of your content. For a recipe, you could mark up the recipe title, ingredients, instructions, rating, calories, reviews and duration.
- Create HTML. When you’ve finished marking up your data, click the “Create HTML” button, which can be found in the top-right corner of the window. The tool will generate the HTML markup for you.
- Insert HTML. Copy the generated markup, ready to be pasted into the relevant section of your page. Commonly, JSON-LD will be inserted into the
<head>or<body>of the page.
A Simple JSON-LD Example
Here is a simplified example of JSON-LD for a recipe page:
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Recipe",
"name": "Garlic Mashed Potatoes",
"image": "https://example.com/images/garlic-mashed-potatoes.jpg",
"description": "Creamy garlic mashed potatoes.",
"prepTime": "PT10M",
"cookTime": "PT20M",
"recipeYield": "4 servings",
"recipeIngredient": [
"1 kg potatoes",
"3 garlic cloves",
"50 g butter"
],
"recipeInstructions": [
{
"@type": "HowToStep",
"text": "Boil the potatoes and garlic until tender."
},
{
"@type": "HowToStep",
"text": "Drain, add the butter and mash until smooth."
}
]
}
</script>Replace the example information and image URL with the details from your own page. The information included in the structured data should accurately match the content visible to visitors.
Avoid adding ratings or reviews unless they are genuine and displayed on the page. You can find the full list of required and recommended properties in Google’s Recipe structured data documentation.
This placement works because the reader has just learned how to generate and insert markup, so they can immediately see what the finished JSON-LD looks like.
Some content management systems and SEO plugins already generate structured data.
Check the existing markup before adding new code to avoid conflicting or duplicate information. Our technical SEO checklist covers other technical checks that may affect how search engines access a page.
Rich Results Test
Now your data has been marked up, you need to check that it has worked correctly and made the page eligible for rich results.
You can use Google’s Rich Results Test to do this.
Visit the testing tool and enter your page URL into the search bar. Click the “Test URL” button. After a minute or two, the tool will present its results. The results will show what structured data was detected. If any fields are missing or invalid, this will be indicated along with suggestions on how to fix them.
Google on Rich Snippets
Using structured data markup cannot guarantee that your website’s search results will feature a rich snippet; it simply makes the page eligible.
Google explains that using structured data enables a search feature but does not guarantee it will appear. Google decides what provides the best search experience based on factors that can include the search, location and device.
That being said, relevant and accurate structured data markup is worth doing. It can help SEO in a number of ways. However, misleading, irrelevant or spammy markup can make a page ineligible for rich results and may result in a structured-data manual action.
Final Words
For many websites, it doesn’t take a lot of time to make a website compatible with rich snippets.
Bearing this in mind, it’s certainly worthwhile since having them in the SERPs can increase your click-through rate.
Bearing this in mind, structured data is often worthwhile because rich results can make listings more informative and may improve click-through rate. Supporting this, research covering more than 4.5 million queries reported a 58% click-through rate for rich results compared with 41% for non-rich results.
When implemented accurately, structured data can give your pages an opportunity to appear more prominently and provide searchers with useful information before they click.
Need help figuring out how to get rich snippets for your website, or want someone to take the task off your hands? Contact us for more information.
