Direct Answers, also known as featured snippets, is a new function from Google, which provides a direct answer after typing a given phrase in a search engine. Information is downloaded from websites which best reflect what the user wishes to know. Such answer can be in various forms, e.g. displayed text or a video.
It needs to be said that it is significant convenience, which in many cases saves time and reduces the need to click links or to browse websites to find the most relevant result. The user quickly receives specific information which is shown first in the search results page — between Adwords advertisements and other search results.
For a long time, Google has been working hard to enable users to receive information they look for without the need to go to external sites. And finally, they have succeeded. On the other hand, it appears that Direct Answers is a natural thing in the era of new mechanisms present on the Internet, such as artificial intelligence or voice search.
Because the Direct Answers function has been only available for a few months now, not all countries and not all phrases and searches will produce an answer in this form. But let’s be patient — we can rest assured that Google will be gradually expanding the range of questions and their level of complexity, and results obtained in the DA box will soon become a norm.