SEO · Updated June 2026
A SERP is the page of results a search engine returns for a query. Modern SERPs mix organic listings with ads, shopping carousels, featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and AI Overviews — so visibility now means winning placements, not just rank #1.
A featured snippet is the highlighted answer box at the top of Google results, extracted from a ranking page. Winning it requires directly answering the query in a concise, self-contained paragraph, list, or table near a matching heading.
AI Overviews are Google’s AI-generated answers shown above traditional results, synthesized from multiple sources with citations. They reduce clicks for simple queries but create new visibility: being cited in an Overview positions your brand as the authority.
Click-through rate (CTR) is clicks divided by impressions — the share of people who see your result and click it. In search, position drives CTR heavily: #1 results average ~25–30% CTR while position 10 gets ~2%. Weak titles waste good rankings.