Passage Ranking (Passage Indexing)
Passage ranking is Google's ability to identify and rank individual, clearly delimited sections within a longer page as relevant to a search query, even when the overarching topic of the page is broader. As a result, a single paragraph of a long article can appear in the search results even if the rest of the page covers a different focus.
In practice
This means that individual sections of long content can rank or be cited independently of one another, instead of only the page as a whole being assessed. It underlines the value of clear subheadings and self-contained, well-structured paragraphs that make sense without the context of the whole article. This "answer first" writing style, where the key statement of a section comes right at the start, is also a central practice in AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).