Related: SEO · Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) · GEO vs SEO · AI Visibility
Originally published February 2022. Updated October 20, 2026 for the AI-summary era.
A SERP, or search engine results page, is the page a search engine shows after a query. In 2022 it was mainly ranked blue links with ads and featured snippets. Today it often leads with an AI-generated summary, and Pew Research Center found people click a traditional result in 8% of visits when a summary appears versus 15% when it does not.
In this guide
What changed about the SERP with AI summaries?
The SERP shifted from a ranking surface to an answer surface. Google's AI Overviews, which grew out of its Search Generative Experience, sit above the organic listings for many queries, and other engines offer comparable answer layers, including Bing's Copilot Search, Perplexity and ChatGPT search.
Pew Research Center measured the effect on behavior. In an analysis published in July 2025 covering 68,879 searches by 900 U.S. adults in March 2025, about one in five searches produced an AI summary. When a summary appeared, users clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits, compared with 15% when none appeared. They clicked a link inside the summary itself in 1% of visits, and ended their browsing session 26% of the time after a page with a summary, versus 16% without one. An Ahrefs analysis reported by The Decoder found a 34.5% lower click-through rate for the top result when an AI Overview appeared.
The takeaway for publishers: ranking still matters, but it no longer guarantees the click. Visibility inside the answer matters too.
What appears on a modern SERP?
An informational Google SERP can combine several modules, and the mix varies by query. The table lists the common ones and what each means for a publisher.
| SERP feature | What it is | What to do |
|---|
| AI Overview | A generated answer at the top that cites sources | Write clear, quotable passages and cite primary sources so your page is a candidate source |
| Sponsored results | Paid listings, mostly on commercial queries | Decide whether paid support is worth it for that query |
| Featured snippet | One page promoted into a highlighted answer box | Answer the question directly in the first lines of a section |
| People Also Ask | An expandable list of related questions | Use question-style subheadings with short, direct answers |
| Image or video pack | Visual results blended into the page | Publish original images and video with descriptive titles and alt text |
| Organic listings | Traditional ranked links | Keep fundamentals sound: relevance, links, speed, internal linking |
| Knowledge panel | An entity card for people, brands and places | Keep structured data and public profiles accurate and consistent |
| Shopping module | Product listings on buying queries | Maintain clean product feeds and reviews |
| Related searches | Suggested query variants | Use them to plan supporting content |
How do the four search intents shape the SERP?
The four classic intents still explain what a SERP shows. Navigational queries look for a specific site, informational queries look to learn, transactional queries aim to buy and commercial queries compare options before buying. Pew found that longer, question-style searches were more likely to trigger an AI summary, so informational and research queries are where answer layers matter most. A navigational query like a login page tends to show a simpler results page.
Match content to intent. A definition page should answer in the first paragraph, a comparison page should show the comparison in a table, and a product page should make buying simple.
How does Google deliver a SERP?
Google describes three stages: crawling, indexing and serving results. Crawlers find pages, the index stores and organizes what they find, and the serving system picks results for each query. Two additions matter for modern SERPs.
Entity understanding. Search engines connect people, companies, products and places across the web. Consistent structured data, such as Schema.org Organization, Person and Article markup, and consistent profiles make it easier for engines to recognize who you are.
Retrieval for generated answers. When an engine writes a summary, it retrieves sources and synthesizes from them. Clear headings, direct answers and cited facts make a page easier to retrieve and quote. EPR covers this discipline in its guide to Generative Engine Optimization and its comparison of GEO and SEO.
How do paid and organic results compare now?
Paid ads still sit at the top of many commercial-intent SERPs, and organic listings sit below the answer layer and ads on many informational queries. The practical result is that sites relying on organic clicks alone for informational queries face a smaller click pool than before. Programs that combine SEO, answer-layer visibility and brand search tend to be more resilient, because each captures a different slice of attention. For how citations are measured, see EPR's explainer on citation share.
What does SERP strategy look like in 2026?
- Compete for the organic position. Traditional SEO still matters, and pages that do not rank are less likely to be retrieved for answers. Start with EPR's SEO guide.
- Feed the answer layer. Structure pages with clear headings, short paragraphs, direct answers, quotable data and primary-source citations.
- Build entity depth. Keep Wikipedia, Wikidata, knowledge panel and structured data information accurate where applicable.
- Win other surfaces. Publish video and images, and see how engines like ChatGPT surface brands in how to rank on ChatGPT.
- Audit regularly. Check what answer engines say about you with a structured process such as EPR's AI visibility audit.
How do you measure SERP performance?
Track more than rank. Useful measures include impressions and clicks by query in Google Search Console, click-through rate on queries where a summary appears, which SERP features your pages win, whether your pages are cited in AI answers, and branded search growth. If impressions rise while clicks fall, the page may be visible inside answers without earning visits, which calls for a different content or offer strategy rather than only more ranking work.
Sources
Pew Research Center, analysis of Google searches and AI summaries (July 22, 2025); The Decoder, reporting on an Ahrefs click-through analysis; Google Search Central documentation on crawling, indexing and serving.
