Some people new to the world of search are often confused by the way the Search Engine Results Pages are structured and this has only become more confusing as Google continues to roll out new features and fill up as much screen real estate as the conceivably can. This article will provide a brief overview of what to look for in Search Engine Results Pages on Google and how all the different elements interlink.
When you first perform a search in Google you will see, most likely, three main blocks of results. You will see the results on the right hand side of the page and you will also see a similarly presented block of results at the top of the page. These results generally have far shorter descriptions than the other results found in other areas of the page. These listings or results are paid search results or in other words they are results generated by advertisers participating in the Google Ad Words program. Advertisers who want their results to appear in these sections of the Search Engine Results Pages have to pay for every click their listing receives and the cost per click varies depending on how competitive a particular keyword is.
The remaining screen real estate belongs to the natural listings, these are the results that can be influenced by Search Engine Optimisation activities. The natural listings are typically grouped into a pack of 10 results however this depends purely on the type of query performed by the user. If the user performs a query with some local intent then it is quite likely that the natural listings will be amalgamated with Google Places listings or rather local business results. If the query is more product orientated then you are more likely to see a pack of Google Product results appear on the page. Furthermore, if the query has some form of intent that is related to searching for a current news item then again, you are quite likely to see Google News items appear at the top of the SERPs. All of these different channels in Google are implemented into the main Search Engine Results Pages and are a part of what is referred to as Universal Search.