SERP features are part of search engine results, and refer to the different features that can be displayed by a search engine after searching a keyword or phrase.
Tracking SERP features can be helpful in understanding the impact and depth of your SEO work. If your website is returned in SERP features, this can mean improved site visibility and brand recognition, which in turn boosts site traffic.
After turning on the SERP features metric, SERP icons for returned features will display in the SERP or mobile SERP features column of the Rank Tracker table.
This article covers how to interpret the SERP features keyword data presented; check out the video below for a quick walkthrough. Detailed definitions of each SERP feature can be found here.
Understanding SERP feature icons
Each feature that may show up in search engine results pages has a corresponding icon. These icons will display anytime SERP features are returned in the keyword search results.
When an icon is grey, the feature was returned but not for the domain you're tracking. If an icon is highlighted by your brand colour, then the SERP has that feature, and it's returned for your tracked domain.
In the example below, the SERP returned People Also Ask, Review, and Site link features. They weren't returned for the domain we're tracking, so they appear grey.
We can verify this by hovering over the keyword rank, then clicking the SERP link in the bottom right of the tooltip.
In the below example, the SERP has returned 4 features, with our domain returning for three of them, so they're highlighted in our brand colour. This can also be confirmed via the SERP verification method shown above.
How do SERP features affect rankings?
Most SERP features do not affect organic rankings, instead they have unique rankings related to the SERP feature itself. The SERP features that do affect rankings, as they're considered organic rankings, are listed below:
Map Pack / Local 3-Pack (if enabled)
Featured or Rich Snippet
Sitelink or Indented Results
If you hover over the SERP feature icons, a tooltip will display where you can see the unique feature ranking, and full list of returned features.
In this example below, both Knowledge Graph and People Also ask are being returned in the SERP, and match for our domain.
Since Knowledge Graph and People Also Ask are not considered organic results, their unique rankings are displayed in the tooltip. People Also Ask is ranking 4th as our domain was the 4th returned result within the PAA section.
In the same example Sitelink, which is considered an organic rank, was returned for our domain. No rank is listed beside Sitelink in the tooltip; as an organic ranking it falls under the Google organic ranking.
If Sitelink returned 9th in the SERP, but our keyword ranked 3rd, then the higher of the two would be displayed under the Google rank column.