SEO Research

Google doesn’t publish SERP feature data.

As a result, when it comes to SERP features, SEOs are left scratching their heads.

• Should we target SERP features?
• How much traffic can we expect from them?
• What do they tell us about user intent?
• How should we treat them strategically?

So I decided to dig into some data to work this out.

In this post, I’ll present the SERP feature data I found and examine what it means to your SEO strategy moving forward.

Over the last few months, our SERP Team has been keeping an eye on a new SERP feature using our Mobile SERP Features Tool.

Things to Know.

This feature is designed to give the searcher well-organized Featured Snippet style information on a topic as well as click through to specific URLs to dig into those topics and read more.

Our CEO Shay Harel recently asked a question about the Things to Know feature.

Surely the new feature plays the same role as a People Also Ask box, just with fewer options?

Personally being a curious person, the question kept me up at night.

After looking at the data and doing a little SERP analysis, I found an answer. In this post, I explain what I found.

Now that the May 2022 Core Update is officially rolled out and the dust is settling, we are all looking at the Google SERPs wondering what has changed.

Yes, there are always rankings that change based on quality signals. But, as Google adds and changes its many SERP features it really pays to be aware of those changes.

In the aftermath, a SERP feature caught my attention. Things to Know From what I'm seeing, the new feature could change how you do SEO moving forward.

Here is my analysis.

How well do you know Google search?

The question may have caught you off-guard, as you're likely thinking about how simple it is. All you need to do is browse to the Google homepage, type in your question, and with that, you're done, right?

Though you only see a small, fixed amount of search results at any time, looking at the total number often reveals millions of hits. The chances are that most of those results have nothing to do with what you want to see.

What if there was a way for you to focus on the information you wanted while stripping away all the noise?

It's time for you to meet Google Advanced Search. When you finish reading this, you'll never look at Google the same way again.

After looking at some initial data for Google's December 2020 update, the general consensus is this one was big.

As powerful as the update was, wouldn’t it be nice to know what happened? What did Google change? What were they looking for? Why did some sites win while others saw ranking losses?

These are great questions and if you want exact answers, there aren’t any.

However...

In this is a post I attempt to find themes within the update by qualitatively analyzing some of the pages Google swapped out on the SERP.

All good things start with observations. In this case, I thought I noticed that Google was showing much longer meta-descriptions towards the top of the SERP. In fact, the more queries I ran the more it seemed that Google was showing longer meta-descriptions at the top of the SERP and shorter ones towards the bottom.

Is this true? Is Google showing longer meta-descriptions for those URLs that rank better?

To find out I analyzed 5,000 keywords... for a month.

What does Click-Through Rate (CTR) look like above the fold versus below the fold? The question, being as good as it is, doesn't make it an easy one to answer. In fact, it's more than a little complicated. After all, you have to discount the first organic result being above the fold to a certain extent considering it's the first result folks see regardless of its "fold" status.

Complications aside, for the moment, let's explore what CTR is above and below the fold for sites on page one of the Google SERP!

Back in December 2019, Google's BERT algorithm made its way to the Top Stories Carousel. Ever since then I've been dying to get my hands on the newly segmented carousels to see what makes them tick, where they hit the mark, and where they fall a bit short. It's only taken me a few months, but here's a bit of thematic analysis on what's happening with the Top Stories carousel now that BERT is part of the picture.

While the May 2020 Core Update is certainly not the first core update we've seen, it might just be one of the most unique. For Google's second core algorithm update of 2020, we were delivered one of the strongest and most impactful updates we've seen in quite some time. Throw in the fact that the update rolled-out in the middle of a global pandemic and we're left with a lot of data, patterns, and insights to chew on.

In this post we'll:

• Analyze the way the update rolled-out
• Break down rank volatility increases per niche
• Dive into some of the site-level patterns embedded within the update
• Look at what role COVID-19 may have played

There's a lot of advice out there on how to recover from and even prevent your site from being hurt by one of Google's core updates. Some of the advice is pretty good... some of it is a bit cliche. So let's go down the rabbit hole a bit by analyzing the data on the core updates, some site-level patterns that the updates have produced, and what you might want to consider for your site as a result.

Here's a data-packed (yet holistic) look at what you can do to prevent ranking and traffic losses at the hands of a core update.

So you've won a Featured Snippet... let the traffic flow, right? Not so fast there! What other SERP features are showing alongside your Featured Snippet? What other features are competing for a user's attention? What SERP features most commonly appear with Featured Snippets? How strong is a Featured Snippet win... really?!

You've got questions... we've got data...

Is rank more volatile in 2020 than it was before the latest string of core updates arrived? Is the continued presence of both Google's confirmed and unconfirmed updates making rank stability harder and harder to come by? As machine learning progresses are we seeing more and more rank volatility? Has August 2018's Medic update put us on a new path of increased rank fluctuations?

Let's find out!