Search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, or even Google, are popular amongst the young and old. Anything that you might want to inquire about, you can quite simply google it. The web pages you get in response to your query on these search engines are called Search Engine Result Pages, aka SERPs.
But, how do SERPs work exactly?
Whenever a user types in a word or phrase into a search engine, the keywords bring about a response from the search engine. Keywords are fundamentally specific words that the search engine identifies and uses to bring the user pertinent information from the internet. It is important to remember that never are two SERPs ever alike. Even if the keywords are similar, SERPs are always unique. They may even appear similar but there will always be subtle changes that make each SERP different.
Why are SERPs unique?
Search engines customize the experience for their users by providing results based upon considerations that are not relevant to the keywords. These factors may include the user’s browsing history, social settings, and even the physical location of the user. Furthermore, developments in technologies in the search space also affects the changes in SERPs. Also, there are two different types of SERPs.
Organic SERPs
Search engines operate upon certain algorithms, the listings of web pages you get due to these algorithms are called organic SERPs.
Paid SERPs
Paid SERPs are those results that have been paid to be displayed by an advertiser.
Now, to understand why some results are entirely organic whilst others are paid, you need to know that there different types of internet searches as well.
Informational searches are those where the user attempts to find information about a given topic. Navigational searches are those where the user hopes to locate a specific website. Transactional searches, as the name suggests, have high commercial intent. These searches make include keywords like ‘buy’ or ‘best product’.
Now, informational and navigational searches mostly bring about organic SERPs. But, transactional searches will have paid SERPs come up where many products and services related to the search will be advertised.
But, the fact remains that even though search engines use keywords to bring you the most relevant SERPs, users still have to go through several pages to get the most vital information. And, it’s here that APIs come into the scene. Also known as the Application Program Interface. APIs are software intermediaries that allow two applications to communicate with each other.
For example, search engines such as Siri use APIs. Thus, when a user asks about the weather, you don’t end up at the Yahoo! Weather Site, rather you get the forecast for the present day.
So, technically APIs fine-tune SERPs to get you exactly what you’re looking for.
In Conclusion
Hopefully, we’ve provided you with enough information to understand how SERPs and APIs function. And, how they can make life easier for the user, by bringing the most relevant information to your fingertips.
