Yo can tell google (and any other respectable search engine) not to include snippetsin results, either via robots.txt or with meta elements.

How?

Edit: thanks. I see Google makes it really hard to opt out of featured snippet while retaining regular search result snippet support.

I didn't see anything about the robots.txt approach, but this support page discusses the meta tag method.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en

I was specifically asking because I’d never heard of a robots.txt solution for blocking snippets. None of the responses have included that information.

Why don't you try being a little kinder, especially when you don't have all the facts?

It's not as though web design like knowledge of meta tags and robots.txt is the sum total of everything to know about computers. Maybe they've built their own 8-bitter, or are a motherboard PCB designer? I'd argue that'd put them firmly in the 'computer guru' class. But we don't know, so it's probably better to say nothing at all.

Hey, thanks. I've done all those things but tbh the name predates all that. I was an op in a tech support irc channel in the 90s/00s and that was the name I'd picked at the time (I was not comfortable with tying my ID to myself IRL but perhaps even moreso, I was also very sensitive about being pretty much the only minority on all the user groups and mailing lists I frequented. The "guru" half of the moniker was somewhat an homage to being a minority, although I'm not Indian).

I messaged the HN mods many years ago (either pg or dang, can't remember) when things had changed and I had decided to just use my real name online but was told that it would not be possible to change it for posterity purposes.

Isn't this what a search engine is?

Google takes the excerpt which is relevant to your query, displays it to you, along with a link to the resource.

Are we upset that the excerpt is too good? That the link isn't prominent enough? Something else?

In a sense, yes, the engine is too good. If you continue this trend, eventually nobody will have a reason to leave Google because anytime you search for anything Google will have the answer to everything.

Sure, it's convenient but it's also a bit frightening for one company to have that much power and I think that's what people are a little hesitant about.

Google should help the users choose whether to visit the site in question or not, but not flat-out remove the need as everything is directly presented in Google. Often the sentences Google shows in the card excerpts are lacking in context, but you wouldn't know without visiting the site.

This would be comparable to write a scientific paper and only reading the headlines of each source you're using

I’m not sure if you’re being dense on purpose. They are not just excerpt. They are taking full on paragraph of content. We aren’t talking of the meta description here. It’s taking so much content that you don’t need to click anymore. Google is now the encyclopedia, with content they did not create.

Then allow it only to search engines where you have an agreement, or at least they have provided a public commitment, as to how they will present information that aligns with your preferences. You don't have to use “User-agent: *” for your rules.