What Is a SERP? Definition & Example

What is a SERP?

A SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page a search engine displays in response to a query, made up of organic results plus whatever additional features that engine layers on top — ads, an AI Overview, a featured snippet, a local pack, or image and video carousels. The term applies to any search engine, but it's most often used to describe what Google or Bing show after someone types in a search.

Why a SERP is more than a list of links

A modern SERP typically blends several formats in one page rather than showing a single list of ranked links, and which formats appear depends on the query's intent, the engine, and the searcher's device and location. A single page might combine paid ads at the top or bottom, an AI-generated summary sitting above the organic listings, a featured snippet pulling one page's text into a highlighted box, a local pack with a map and nearby businesses, and a row of images or videos for visually oriented queries — all before the standard organic listings appear.

A concrete example

Search "best time to plant tomatoes" and the SERP that comes back is unlikely to start with plain blue links: it typically opens with an AI Overview synthesizing an answer from several sites, followed by a mix of organic gardening blogs, maybe a video carousel, and only then the traditional list of ranked results. Compare that to a narrow, technical query with little ambiguity, which might still return a plain, mostly-organic results page with few or no extra features.

Where SERPs are headed

Because SERPs now blend organic listings with AI-generated summaries, understanding both is part of understanding modern search. For the underlying mechanics of how pages earn a place on a SERP at all, see What Is SEO? A Beginner's Guide to Search Basics; for how AI Overviews specifically pull and cite content, see AI Overviews: What They Are and How They Work.