The results displayed after a search, potentially including organic listings, advertisements, maps, videos, and AI-generated answers.
SERP is shorthand for search engine results page: the screen of responses returned for a search. It can contain several kinds of results rather than a uniform list of website links. Text, image and video results each present information differently, and their arrangement can vary by query and device.
Reading the results page helps you understand the task a searcher may be trying to complete. A search dominated by product listings calls for a different page assessment from one showing tutorials. Treat this as evidence to examine, not an instruction to copy competitors or assume the layout will remain unchanged.
Separate the whole results page from an individual result. A title link and snippet belong to a result; the SERP includes the surrounding choices too. When discussing performance with an agency, specify whether you mean a conventional organic listing, a paid placement or another feature. Otherwise, two people can report different positions while describing different parts of the same screen.
Takeaway: Look at the result types customers encounter before deciding whether a product page, service page, guide or visual demonstration will answer their question most clearly.
Example
A furniture maker researching “how to measure a dining table” may see instructional pages and images. For “buy extending dining table,” the visible options may emphasize products instead. These are illustrative searches, not a claim about a current fixed layout. The useful question is what information a shopper needs at each step.
What to check
Record the query, date, device and market when documenting a SERP. Use screenshots as observations of that moment, not universal proof of a position. Google’s visual-elements guide helps identify the parts being compared.
For more detail, see Visual Elements gallery of Google Search.