SERPs: What does it mean?

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I first mentioned SERPs in my article Using Comments to Build Links and Drive Traffic – Part 1 a couple of days ago. In that article, one of the readers asked if I would go into the details of what SERPs are. Well, in a nutshell a SERP is a search engine results page. When a searcher enters a keyword search into their search engine, they will get SERP a number of results that are then listed on a page. This page is called a search engine results page.

The SERP page can possibly return contextual, algorithmic, or organic search listings. Also, you have to be aware that it can return sponsored listings, images, maps, definitions, videos, or suggested search refinements. These results are generated by the search engines using content contained within the Metadata tags of a web page to generate the content that makes up a search snippet. The title tag will be used as the title of the snippet while the contents of the description tag will be used for the description. If these tags are not available then the search engines can pull content from within the page to use in place of the description tag. Thus SERPs are intimately connected to SEO.

I have heard some people mention that they do not pay any attention to SERPs. The issue with that is the less you pay attention to it, the less likely you are to be found in search engines. I guess if you are just writing a blog in order to have all your thoughts written down in one place, then you can ignore SERPs. However, if you are wanting to be found by more people, you need to put some effort into your SEO and SERP.

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7 responses to “SERPs: What does it mean?”

Allegra Dioguardi says:

November 25, 2009 at 6:23 pm

Thank you! Can you explain: contextual, algorithmic, or organic search listings?
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Rich Dansereau says:

November 25, 2009 at 7:28 pm

Allegra,
Contextual search listings are paid advertisements closely relating to the information the user happens to be viewing.
Algorithmic search listings rely heavily on a site’s meta tags. This is not as popular as it once was because some webmasters practiced keyword stuffing which utilized keywords that oftentimes did not relate directly to site’s content.
Organic search listings are those that are relevant to the search terms.
Hope this helps to clarify the difference.
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Allegra Dioguardi says:

November 25, 2009 at 7:32 pm

Thank you Rich, it does.
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hospitalera oes tsetnoc says:

November 28, 2009 at 4:19 am

Excellent explanation, Rich, too many people worry about PR and forget that what counts are the SERP your web site / blog shows up in! Thumbs up SY
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Danny Thornton says:

November 28, 2009 at 10:41 am

SY, I guess we are going to have to start designating the authors in the beginning. I actually wrote this article. With that said, you are correct that people forget about their SERP and focus on PR.
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hospitalera oes tsetnoc says:

November 28, 2009 at 11:03 am

Oh, sorry Danny, Rich send me the blog post via stumbleupon and I “ass-u-me-d” foolishly that he also wrote it, sorry again! Regarding PR, I don’t remember where, but I read today that Google uses the PR mainly now to determine the crawl rate of your site, means the higher your PR, the more pages they will index. Interesting bit of info to say the least, if it is true, SY
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Danny Thornton says:

November 28, 2009 at 11:21 am

Sy, you are correct on the Page Rank. With that, I know that Google is now going to calculate your site speed as the measure of importance. As for PR, if you look into Webmaster Tools in Google, it has been removed.
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