Google SERP Features Timeline

The latest Google SERP feature tests and launches

[Updated: 08:57pm AEST, March 17th 2023]
Mar 2023
04 Mar

Google has now rolled out blue highlighting of content and larger font within paragraph featured snippets. This test dates back to September of 2022, where the highlight would should in both yellow and blue. On mobile, featured snippets still appear as bold (the previous approach) alongside the blue highlight. This launch looks to apply in most cases of full-width paragraph featured snippets, but the previous approach does appear in some instances too, when appearing within knowledge panels. Also spotted by Krinal Mehta.

Sep 2022
11 Sep

Google is now running a test focused on highlighting relevant content in Featured Snippets and PAA results. This test is a replacement of the bolding functionality, which first rolled out in July of 2021. The highlight functionality for web pages dates back to 2019, originally focused on on-site content with scroll-to-text on mobile with AMP. The test shows with either a yellow or blue highlight, often presenting the text in a larger font.

Aug 2021
09 Aug

The latest version of Chrome is now showing scroll-to-text fragments in purple by default, instead of the usual yellow highlight. This can appear for some Knowledge Panels, free product listing article snippets, Featured Snippets, and more.