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Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a user. The main component of the SERP is the listing of results that are returned by the search engine in response to a
keyword Keyword may refer to: Computing * Keyword (Internet search), a word or phrase typically used by bloggers or online content creator to rank a web page on a particular topic * Index term, a term used as a keyword to documents in an information syst ...
query. The page that a search engine returns after a user submits a search query. In addition to
organic search results In Web search engines, organic search results are the query results which are calculated strictly algorithmically, and not affected by advertiser payments. They are distinguished from various kinds of sponsored results, whether they are explicit pa ...
, search engine results pages (SERPs) usually include paid search and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The results are of two general types : *
organic search In Web search engines, organic search results are the query results which are calculated strictly algorithmically, and not affected by advertiser payments. They are distinguished from various kinds of sponsored results, whether they are explicit pa ...
: retrieved by the search engine's algorithm * sponsored search: advertisements. The results are normally ranked by
relevance Relevance is the concept of one topic being connected to another topic in a way that makes it useful to consider the second topic when considering the first. The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sci ...
to the query. Each result displayed on the SERP normally includes a title, a link that points to the actual page on the Web, and a short
description Description is the pattern of narrative development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group. Description is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narra ...
showing where the keywords have matched content within the page for organic results. For sponsored results, the advertiser chooses what to display. Due to the huge number of items that are available or related to the query, there are usually several pages in response to a single search query as the search engine or the user's preferences restrict viewing to a subset of results per page. Each succeeding page will tend to have lower ranking or lower relevancy results. Just like the world of traditional print media and its
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
, this enables competitive pricing for page real estate, but is complicated by the dynamics of consumer expectations and intent— unlike static print media where the content and the advertising on every page is the same all of the time for all viewers, despite such hard copy being localized to some degree, usually geographic, like state, metro-area, city, or
neighbourhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; American and British English spelling differences, see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community ...
, search engine results can vary based on individual factors such as browsing habits.


Components

The organic search results, query, and advertisements are the three main components of the SERP, However, the SERP of major search engines, like
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
,
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
, Petal,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
may include many different types of enhanced results (
organic search In Web search engines, organic search results are the query results which are calculated strictly algorithmically, and not affected by advertiser payments. They are distinguished from various kinds of sponsored results, whether they are explicit pa ...
, and sponsored) such as rich snippets, images, maps, definitions, answer boxes, videos or suggested search refinements. A recent study revealed that 97% of queries in Google returned at least one rich feature. The major search engines visually differentiate specific content types such as images,
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...
, and
blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s. Many content types have specialized SERP
templates Template may refer to: Tools * Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material * Mold, in a molding process * Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs Co ...
and visual enhancements on the first search results page.


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, Petal,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
. Users indicate the topic desired based on the keywords they enter into the search box in the search engine. In the competition between search engines to draw the attention of more users and advertisers, consumer satisfaction has been a driving force in the evolution of the
search algorithm In computer science, a search algorithm is an algorithm designed to solve a search problem. Search algorithms work to retrieve information stored within particular data structure, or calculated in the search space of a problem domain, with eith ...
applied to better filter the results by relevancy. Search queries are no longer successful based upon merely finding words that match purely by spelling. Intent and expectations have to be derived to determine whether the appropriate result is a match based upon the broader meanings drawn from context. And that sense of context has grown from simple matching of words, and then of phrases, to the matching of ideas. And the meanings of those ideas change over time and context. Successful matching can be crowdsourced, what are others currently searching for and clicking on, when one enters keywords related to those other searches. And crowdsourcing may be focused based upon one's own social networking. With the advent of portable devices, smartphones, and wearable devices, watches, and various sensors, these provide ever more contextual dimensions for consumers and advertisers to refine and maximize relevancy using such additional factors that may be gleaned like: a person's relative health, wealth, and various other statuses, time of day, personal habits, mobility, location, weather, and nearby services and opportunities, whether urban or suburban, like events, food, recreation, and business. Social context and crowdsourcing influences can also be pertinent factors. The move away from keyboard input and the search box to voice access, aside from convenience, also makes other factors available to varying degrees of accuracy and pertinence, like a person's character, intonation, mood, accent, ethnicity, and even elements overheard from nearby people and the background environment. Searching is changing from explicit keywords: on TV show w, did x marry y or z, or election results for candidate x in county y for this date z, or final scores for team x in game y for this date z to vocalizing from a particular time and location: hey, so who won. And getting the results that one expects.


Organic results

Organic SERP listings are the natural listings generated by
search engines A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
based on a series of metrics that determine their relevance to the searched term. Webpages that score well on a search engine's algorithmic test shown in this list. These algorithms are generally based upon factors such as quality and relevance of the content, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the website and author on a given topic, good user experience and
backlink A backlink is a link from some other website (the referrer) to that web resource (the referent). A ''web resource'' may be (for example) a website, web page, or web directory. A backlink is a reference comparable to a citation. The quantity, q ...
s. People tend to view the first results on the first page. Each page of search engine results usually contains 10 organic listings (however some results pages may have fewer organic listings). According to a 2019 study, the click-through rates (CTRs) for the first page goes as follows: * Position 1: 31.7% * Position 2: 24.7% * Position 3: 18.7% * Position 4: 13.6% * Position 5: 9.5% * Position 6: 6.2% * Position 7: 4.2% * Position 8: 3.1% * Position 9: 3% * Position 10: 3.1%


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 Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
in the search results pages when a website contains content in structured data markup. Structured data markup helps the
Google algorithm PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According ...
to index and understand the content better. Google supports rich snippets for the following data types: * Product – Information about a product, including price, availability, and review ratings. * Recipe – Recipes that can be displayed in web searches and Recipe View. * Review – A review of an item such as a restaurant, movie, or store. * Event – An organized event, such as musical concerts or art festivals, that people may attend at a particular time and place. * Software Application – Information about a software app, including its URL, review ratings, and price. * Video – An online video, including a description and thumbnail, and shows the three resources of answers image, content, and URL in one box. * News article – A news article, including the headline, images, and publisher info. * Science datasets * Job-related content * Mark up "how-to" pages * Sitelinks Search Box * Frequently asked questions (FAQ) * Movie * Job training & job posting * Breadcrumb


Featured snippets

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:


Knowledge graph

Search engines like Google, Bing,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
have started to expand their data into Encyclopedia and other rich sources of information. Google for example calls this sort of information "
Google Knowledge Graph The Google Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base from which Google serves relevant information in an infobox beside its search results. This allows the user to see the answer in a glance. The data is generated automatically from a variety of so ...
", if a search query matches it will display an additional sub-window on right hand side with information from its sources.


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

Major search engines like
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
,
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
, Petal,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
primarily use content contained within the page and fallback to metadata tags of a web page to generate the content that makes up a search snippet. Generally, the
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
title tag will be used as the title of the snippet while the most relevant or useful contents of the web page ( description tag or page copy) will be used for the description.


Scraping and automated access

Search engine result pages are protected from automated access by a range of defensive mechanisms and terms of service. These result pages are the primary data source for
Search engine optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "natural" or " organic" results) rather than dire ...
, the website placement for competitive keywords that has become an important field of business and interest. Google has even used
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
to warn users against this practice The sponsored (creative) results on Google can cost a large amount of money for advertisers. The most expensive keywords are for legal services, especially personal injury lawyers in highly competitive markets. These keywords range in the hundreds of USD, while the most expensive is nearly 1000 USD for each sponsored click. The process of harvesting search engine result pages data is usually called " search engine scraping" or in a general form "
web crawling A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically operated by search engines for the purpose of Web indexing (''web spid ...
" and generates the data SEO-related companies need to evaluate website competitive organic and sponsored rankings. This data can be used to track the position of websites and show the effectiveness of SEO as well as keywords that may need more SEO investment to rank higher.


UX and SERP

There are more than 200 different factors defining ranking in SERP. User experience is one of the most important indicators for the Search Engines. They strive to display the most relevant results for their users and constantly check the user behavior regarding websites that are in SERP. Search Engines can change the position of a website if its CTR is very low compared with the competitors.


See also

*
User intent User intent, otherwise known as query intent or search intent, is the identification and categorization of what a user online intended or wanted to find when they typed their search terms into an online web search engine for the purpose of search ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Search Engine Results Page Search engine optimization Internet search engines Internet terminology