The organic search results, queries, and
advertisements are the three main components of the
SERP, However, the
SERP of major search engines, like
Google,
Yahoo!,
Bing and
Sogou may include many different types of enhanced results (
organic search, and sponsored) such as rich snippets, images, maps, definitions, answer boxes, videos or suggested search refinements. A study revealed that 97% of queries in Google returned at least one rich feature. Another study on the evolution of SERPs interfaces from 2000 to 2020 shows that SERP are becoming more diverse in terms of elements, aggregating content from different verticals and including more features that provide direct answers. More recently, large language models (LLMs) like
ChatGPT,
Claude, and
Gemini have introduced AI-powered answer boxes or generative overviews into SERPs, summarizing information from multiple sources directly on the results page and reducing clicks to external sites.
Search query Also known as 'user search string', this is the word or set of words that are typed by the user in the search bar of the search engine. The search box is located on all major search engines like
Google,
Yahoo,
Bing and
Sogou. Users
indicate the topic desired based on the keywords they enter into the
search box in the search engine.
Organic results Organic SERP listings are the natural listings generated by
search engines, that display
webpages matching the query. The pages are sorted on a relevance score based on a series of metrics generally based upon factors such as quality and relevance of the content, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness of the website and author on a given topic, good
user experience, and
backlinks. Each of the matching web pages is presented as a visual element composed of attribution, a title link, and a snippet of the matching webpage showing how the query matched on the page. Search results pages typically contain numerous organic results, and users tend to view only the first results on the first page. Search results may vary based on geographic location, which can be influenced by factors such as IP address, user settings, and localization parameters, and may be simulated using manual URL parameters.
Sponsored results Several major search engines offer "sponsored results" to companies, who may pay the search engine to have their products or services appear above other search hits. This is often done in the form of bidding between companies, where the highest bidder gets the top result. A 2018 report from the European Commission showed that consumers generally avoid these top results, as there is an expectation that the topmost results on a search engine page will be sponsored, and thus less relevant.
Rich snippets Rich snippets are displayed by
Google in the search results pages when a website contains content in structured data markup. Structured data markup helps the
Google algorithm to index and understand the content better. Google supports rich snippets for various data types, including products, recipes, reviews, events, news articles, and job postings.
Featured snippets A featured snippet is a summary of an answer to a user's query. This snippet appears at the top of the list of search hits. Google supports the following types of featured snippets: Paragraph Featured Snippet, Numbered List Featured Snippet, Bulleted List Featured Snippet, Table Featured Snippet,
YouTube Featured Snippet, Carousel Snippet, Double Featured Snippet, and Two-for-One Featured Snippet.
Knowledge graph Search engines like
Google,
Bing,
Sogou have started to expand their data into
encyclopedia sources and other more structured troves of information. How these entries are displayed, and with what degree of preview detail, varies substantially between these search engine UX implementations.
Google Discover Google Discover formerly known as Google Feed is a way of getting topics and news information to users on the homepage below the search box. ==Generation==