A SERP is a web page generated by a search engine as a response to a user's query. It can contain snippets of articles, frequently asked questions, or dashboards.
The content of such a page is actually widely used and can significantly affect the search process. SERP can both draw the user's attention to the results page, and help them decide on the query itself and what they want to find, influence information needs, and even provide the user with the information they need on the SERP itself.
The results presented in this article are derived from a series of eyetracking and usability tests from 2016 to 2019.
Defining SERP characteristics
In addition to the above-mentioned SERP features, there are several others that Google (as well as other search engines) constantly copy from each other. Google often changes the design of its results page, so the screenshots that you'll see below may differ slightly from what's in your search engine.
There are two main reasons why you should care about SERP design::
- SEO (search engine optimization) is the main source of traffic for most websites. To be successful online, you need to know how people use search and how they interact with SERP features.
- Search on your site (or via the Internet) It will depend on search engine performance due to Jacob's Law of User Experience, which states that people spend most of their time on sites other than yours. Users ' understanding of how search works and its functions is based on their experience with the search engine, so these functions must meet the expectations created by search engines.