What is SERP?

A search engine results page (SERP) is the list of results that a search engine returns in response to a specific word or phrase query. Each listing includes the linked Web page title, the linked page URL, a brief description of the page content and, in some cases, links to points of interest within the website.

There are three main types of results on a SERP:

1.     Pages that the search engine spider has crawled and indexed

2.     Pages that have been manually added to the search engine’s directory.

3.     Pages that appear as a result of paid inclusion.

Depending on the number of Web pages that contain a particular word or phrase, a SERP might show anywhere from zero(in the case of no matches at all to millions of items.

In most cases, search engine users will look at only the first one to three pages of hits (results). Web designers and site owners use search engine optimization (SEO) methods to make their sites and pages appear at or near the top of a SERP.

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, and Bing. 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 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.

Organic Results

Organic SERP listings are the natural listings generated by search engines based on a series of metrics that determines their relevance to the searched term. Webpages that score well on a search engine's algorithmic test show in this list. These algorithms are generally based upon factors such as the content of a webpage, the trustworthiness of the website, and external factors such as backlinks, social media, news, advertising, etc.

 People tend to view the SERP and the first results on each SERP. Each page of search engine results usually contains 10 organic. However the listings, which are on the first page are the most important ones, because those get 91% of the click through rates (CTR) from a particular search. According to a 2013 stud.

Sponsored Results

Every major search engine with significant market share accepts paid listings. This unique form of search engine advertising guarantees that your site will appear in the top results for the keyword terms you target within a day or less. Paid search listings are also called sponsored listings and/or Pay Per Click (PPC) listings

Rich Snippets

Google displays rich snippets in the search results page 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 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.
• News article – A news article, including headline, images, and publisher info.

Knowledge Graph

Search engines like Google or Bing have started to expand their data into encyclopedias and other rich sources of information.

Google for example calls this sort of information "Knowledge Graph", if a search query matches it will display an additional sub-window on right hand side with information from its sources.

Information about hotels, events, flights, places, businesses, people, books and movies, countries, sport groups, architecture and more can be obtained that way.

Scraping and automated access

Search engine result pages are protected from automated access by a range of defensive mechanisms and the terms of service. These result pages are the primary data source for SEO companies, the website placement for competitive keywords became an important field of business and interest. Google has even used twitter to warn users against this practice.

The sponsored (creative) results on Google can cost an large amount of money for advertisers, a few of which pay Google nearly 1000 USD for each sponsored click.

The process of harvesting search engine result page data is usually called "search engine scraping" or in a general form "web crawling" 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.