A List of SERP Features: Every Block on the Page, What Triggers It, and How to Earn It

A results page is now a stack of separate blocks, each with its own trigger and its own route in. Six families cover all of them: the organic text result and its parts, exploration blocks such as related questions, the featured snippet, the AI blocks, media blocks for images and video, and the local pack. Rich results sit across several of those families and depend on structured data. Paid blocks are bought rather than earned. The list below uses Google's own names where it publishes them, because tool vendors and agencies each have their own vocabulary and the official names are the ones that stay stable.

If you want the broader explanation of what a results page is before the inventory, our piece on what SERP stands for and everything that sits on one covers it.

The organic text result and its parts

Google documents the result page in a visual elements gallery, and these are its names for the pieces of a single text result.

Element	What it is	What you control
Title link	The clickable title that links to the page	The title element and headings, which Google may rewrite
Snippet	The description or summary text beneath the result	Clear on-page copy, plus the snippet controls
Attribution	The source line: site name, favicon and URL	Organization markup, a consistent site name, a clean URL
Favicon, site name, visible URL, domain, breadcrumb	The four parts of that attribution line	A valid favicon file, site name markup, breadcrumb markup
Byline date	The date Google estimates the page was published or updated	A visible date on the page and a consistent date in markup
Sitelinks group and sitelink	Two or more clustered links from the same site under one result	Clear page titles, a sane menu and internal linking
Text result image	A small preview image pulled from the page	A relevant, well sized lead image
Rich attributes	Extra lines such as review stars or recipe details	Structured data on the page

Google also names the other result types alongside the text result: rich result, image result and video result, each with its own elements such as the image thumbnail, video thumbnail and upload date.

Exploration blocks

• Related searches group. A cluster of searches other people have done. You do not earn it, and you do read it: it is a free list of the adjacent phrasings worth covering.
• Related questions group, commonly called People Also Ask. Google's documentation notes that these expand to show a featured snippet, which means the route into the block is the same as the route into a snippet: answer one question plainly in one place.

The featured snippet

Google is direct about how this one works. Its systems "determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet for a user's search request", and when asked whether you can mark a page as a featured snippet the documentation answers "You can't". So the method is editorial: find the question, answer it in a short self contained block of forty to sixty words near the top of the page, use the question as the heading, and keep the answer free of references to earlier paragraphs.

Opting out is documented too, which matters for publishers whose answer is the product. The nosnippet rule blocks all snippets including featured ones, data-nosnippet excludes specific text, and a lower max-snippet value can reduce featured snippet display, although Google notes that a low max-snippet setting does not stop featured snippets with certainty.

The AI blocks

AI Overviews and AI Mode are the newest blocks and the least mysterious once you read the documentation. Google states that "a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet", that "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary", and that there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add". It also describes query fan-out, where the system runs several related searches across subtopics and data sources while composing a reply, which is why a page that answers one narrow subtopic thoroughly can be cited in an answer to a much broader question (Google Search Central, AI features). The same snippet controls apply here, so a page excluded from snippets is excluded from these blocks.

Media blocks

Image and video blocks appear when the query looks like a request to see something, and they are often the easiest route onto page one for a competitive term. Images need descriptive filenames, alt text and an image sitemap. Video needs a watch page with one main video, a thumbnail, a transcript and video structured data. Both are separate rankings, not a bonus on your text result.

The local pack

The map block is driven by your business profile rather than by your blog. Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity", with prominence shaped partly by links and reviews, and adds that "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google" (Business Profile help). The work is complete categories and services, accurate hours and service areas, photographs, and a steady review routine.

Rich results, which structured data makes you eligible for

These are the features your markup opens up. Google's search gallery currently lists: Article, Breadcrumb, Carousel, Course list, Dataset, Discussion forum, Education Q&A, Employer aggregate rating, Event, Image metadata, Job posting, Local business, Math solver, Movie, Organization, Product, Profile page, Q&A, Recipe, Review snippet, Software app, Speakable, Subscription and paywalled content, Vacation rental and Video.

Two habits keep this part sane. Only mark up what is genuinely visible on the page, and check each type's own guide before implementing, because required and recommended properties differ and a type can be retired. Eligibility is not placement, so treat markup as the ticket rather than the seat.

Paid blocks, and Discover

Search ads and shopping results are bought through the ad platforms, and shopping listings are fed by product data rather than page copy. They matter to this list mainly because they decide how far down the page your organic result begins, which is a reason to read the live results page before judging a keyword by its volume. Separately, Discover is a surface rather than a block on a results page, with its own eligibility and its own reporting in Search Console.

Reading the features before you write the page

1. Search the query in a private window, in the country you sell in, and screenshot the whole page.
2. List the blocks in order, with the number of organic results above the fold. This tells you what winning actually looks like for that query.
3. Pick the block you can realistically take. A query owned by a local pack and three ads is a different project from one with a snippet and ten text results.
4. Write for that block. A snippet needs a tight answer, an image block needs images, a local pack needs profile work, and a carousel of large brands is a signal to pick a narrower query.
5. Re-check quarterly, because the blocks on a query change more often than the rankings within them.

For your own brand name, the same exercise has a different goal, which our guide to brand SERP optimization covers.

Questions about SERP features

How many SERP features are there?

There is no fixed count, because Google documents result elements and rich result types separately and both lists change. Work from the two official galleries above rather than from a vendor's list, and treat anything else as a nickname for one of those.

Which SERP features are worth chasing?

The snippet and related questions for informational queries, the local pack for anything with a service area, image and video blocks where the query is visual, and product rich results for anything you sell. The rest are situational.

Do SERP features reduce clicks to my site?

Some blocks answer the question on the page, which changes the kind of query worth targeting rather than the value of being present. Track impressions and clicks per query in Search Console so you are reading your own data rather than an industry average.

Can I pay to appear in a SERP feature?

Ads and shopping listings are paid placements. The organic blocks are not for sale, and Google states plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking, so treat any offer to place you in the map pack as a warning about the provider.

The block with no position number

Every feature on this list can be found, measured and tracked to a position. The newest one cannot be reduced to a number in the same way, because when somebody asks an assistant a question the output is a paragraph that names a few businesses and cites a handful of pages, and there is no tenth place. That changes what an inventory of features is for. Instead of asking which block you rank in, the question becomes which sources the written answer was built from, and whether your page is among them. The audit habit transfers directly: screenshot the answer, list the citations, repeat monthly. AI Knows Us adds that row for you, logging the answer, the businesses named inside it and the pages it cited, which is the same discipline as a rank tracker pointed at a block that has no rank. One look at aiknowsus.com tells you what the row currently holds.