What Is SERP (Search Engine Results Pages)?

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

A SERP (search engine results page) plays a key role in gaining online visibility for your website.

[Featured image] A woman sits at a laptop examining a SERP (search engine results page).

SERP, or search engine results pages, are the results a user sees after conducting an online query using a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. When a user types a query into a search engine, that search engine crawls its index for relevant web pages, then displays them in order of relevance. A SERP often features a combination of organic results, paid ads, featured snippets, and other types of content. 

SERP is incredibly competitive. Search Engine Journal found that top search results have an average CTR (clickthrough rate) of 28.5 percent [1]. After the top result, the second and third listings garner 15 percent and 11 percent, respectively. SERP can also refer to other pages beyond the first page of results. But users typically don’t click on the second page of results, making the first page prime real estate.

The goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to improve a site's ranking in the organic results of a SERP to drive increased traffic to the site. 

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Article sources

  1. Sistrix. “Why Almost Everything You Knew About Google CTR Is No Longer Valid, https://www.sistrix.com/blog/why-almost-everything-you-knew-about-google-ctr-is-no-longer-valid/.” Accessed March 1, 2023.

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