Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) have changed a lot over the years.
Google has frequently updated the way in which they serve results to users, making the much coveted page one, position one’ more and more difficult to achieve for us SEO bods.
But if we look at it another way, with so many different types of results available, perhaps Google has just provided us with even more opportunities to drive traffic to our client’s websites, and raise their brand awareness.
What are SERPs?
SERPs are the list of results displayed when a user enters a search term into a search engine. The results that it serves a user can vary wildly depending on the perceived intent of the search term, the user’s search history and other personalisation factors, such as location, and device.
This means that what one user sees may be different from what another user sees, even if they perform the same search. This means that rankings, while a good indicator of overall search performance, are no longer the be-all and end-all when it comes to monitoring specific keywords.
Types of Google SERPs
As of 2021, these are the main Google organic SERPs you’re likely to see, and why.
It’s worth noting that pages can be marked up with schema to help some (but not all) of these types of results show in SERPs.
Sitelinks
Not a new one here – sitelinks are links to deeper pages on a website that can be accessed directly from a SERP. They typically appear for brand searches.
You don’t get a whole lot of choice as to which sitelinks will be shown, and you can no longer demote them as Google removed its sitelink demotion tool from Google Search Console yonks ago. Pah.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets usually appear in response to a question (what, why, how). But I’ve also seen them appear a lot for ‘alternatives’, ‘top’ and ‘best’ searches frequently, too.
Now this is a great way of getting traffic to your site. But be prepared to put in the effort – especially as you need to rank pretty high for a term before Google will