To provide the most precise answers to a user’s query in the shortest amount of time, Google constantly develops and updates its algorithms.
To stay competitive, a website owner should carefully track all these changes and adapt their online strategies to Google’s modifications. Let’s see how Google has changed its results in recent times.
Google’s redesigned SERP (search engine result pages) layout for the desktop so that the text ads are not displayed at the right side of the page anymore. Instead, Google positions now three paid ads at the top of the page and at least one at the bottom.
Knowledge Graph
There are times when finding the best answer to your question requires not only a single entity, but rather a list or group of connected information. Now, with the Knowledge Graph, Google can provide this knowledge too, with a new interactive carousel at the top of the results page. The Knowledge Graph was introduced in 2012 and has been constantly updated ever since.
What is a Featured Snippet?
The content that appears within this option is generated algorithmically and reflects what people search for and what is available on the web. This featured snippet block includes an extract from a recommended webpage, a link to the page, one image, the page title and its URL. I might look like this:
People also ask
The Related Questions card shows questions that Google believes might relate to your search. Each question expands into something that looks like a Featured Snippet. When you choose the question from it, Google elaborates the list adding new information and possible queries from different websites. Related Questions are integrated with distinctive organic results and their location in the SERP may vary.
Google Image
The first and the most evident SERP change that one can notice is the appearance of tabs in the “Image section” at the top of the page – this feature will enable you to research a topic faster and more in depth than before. When you click on a certain tag, it displays images from one category just like on Pinterest.
Ordered Lists
Ordered lists classify and arrange information from unordered lists using a distinct pattern. They’re especially useful for specifying steps or series of such things like dates, recipes or places.
How you can get featured
As a matter of fact, you can’t. Most pages that get into the Featured Snippet are already present on the first page for the query, most likely, among the top five positions. So, the first step you can’t skip is ranking high with your targeted query. If you’re not there, you won’t be able to get into the Featured Snippet. That is why, you have to work on SEO results and improve your positioning on Google. What’s interesting, is that this featured search results does not appear to be on google.it yet, but it is already active on google.com.
More info
Google seems to be always experimenting with their search engine result pages (SERPs). If you are interested about this kind of results, you can turn to a complete guide to understanding search results.
You can download the Google search result here.