A search engine results Page (SERP) is the listing of results returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of items with titles, a reference to the full version, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.
Query caching
Some search engines cache pages for frequent searches and display the cached pages instead of a live page to increase the performance of the search engine. The search engine updates the search results periodically to account for new pages, and possibly to modify the rankings of pages in the search results. Most of the results are weird and hard work is needed to make them readable.
Search result refreshing can take several days or weeks which can occasionally cause results to be inaccurate or out of date.
Components of SERP
SERPs of major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing, may include different types of listings: contextual, algorithmic or organic search listings, as well as sponsored listings, images, maps, definitions, videos or suggested search refinements.
The major search engines visually differentiate specific content types, such as images, news, and blogs. Many content types have specialized SERP templates and visual enhancements on the main search result page.
There are basically three main components of SERP: Searcher's Query, Organic SERP Listings and Paid SERP Listings.
Organic SERP listings
Main article: Web search query
These are the natural listings generated by search engines based on a series of metrics that determines their relevance to the searched term. Web pages that score well on a search engine's algorithmic test shows in this list.
Paid SERP listings
Main article: Search engine marketing#Paid inclusion
These are advertisements, or sponsored links, included by search engines in their search results. Websites pay search engines to have their web pages listed here. This service is quite different from pay per click.[citation needed]
Generation of SERP
Major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing 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.[1] The html 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. If the web page is not available, information about the page from dmoz may be used instead.[1]
SERP tracking
Search engine optimization (SEO) methods like forum posting, blog commenting, social media, link baiting, link wheels, link exchanges, link farms, etc. to increase their website's ranking on a specific keyword's SERP. As a result, webmasters often check SERPs to track their search engine optimization progress. To speed up the tracking process, programmers created automated software to track multiple keywords for multiple websites.[citation needed] There are many tools available in the market to track SERP
See also
References
- ^ a b Anatomy of a search snippet
