Search engine results pages (SERPs)
A SERP is the page a search engine shows after a search: the list of links, plus ads, AI answers and other boxes.
A search engine results page, or SERP, is the page you see after you search. It used to be ten blue links. Now it's a mix: ads, an AI Overview at the top, a map with local businesses, product listings, videos, questions people also ask, and then the ordinary results.
A SERP is where people decide where to click, so its layout shapes how much traffic any ranking is worth. Ranking third under a big AI answer and a row of ads is a very different thing from ranking third on a page of plain links.
What's on a SERP
The ordinary results, often called organic results, are the pages Google ranks on their merits. Around them sit paid ads, which are marked as sponsored, and a changing set of extra boxes that Google calls features. Google shows which ones exist in its gallery of visual elements.
Which boxes appear depends on the search. "Coffee shop near me" gets a map. "Fernhill Coffee" gets the brand's own site, maybe with sitelinks and a knowledge panel. "Best coffee grinder" might get an AI Overview, shopping results and a video.
The SERP and AI answers
Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode live on the SERP. An AI Overview sits above the organic results and links to the pages it used, so a page can be cited there even if it ranks lower down. AI Mode is a separate conversation inside Google Search.
For example, say Kestrel Roasters ranks first when people search "how to descale an espresso machine" and an AI Overview answers the question above it. Many people get what they need without clicking at all, and the overview may cite someone else.
In AnswerOrbit
We track AI Overviews and AI Mode as two of our six platforms. Google only shows an AI Overview for some searches. When it shows plain results instead, we keep the search and mark it No AI answer, and the AI answer rate tells you how often each prompt got an AI answer at all. See Answers.