From 10 Blue Links Pages to Feature-Full Search Engine Results Pages -- Analysis of the Temporal Evolution of SERP Features

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how search engine results pages (SERPs) have evolved from simple links to feature-rich pages with diverse elements and direct answers, focusing on Google and Bing over time.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the temporal evolution and diversification of SERP features in major search engines using Internet Archive data.

Findings

SERPs are becoming more diverse with new features.

Content from various verticals is increasingly integrated.

More features now provide direct answers to queries.

Abstract

Web Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are one of the most well-known and used web pages. These pages have started as simple ``10 blue links'' pages, but the information in SERP currently goes way beyond these links. Several features have been included in these pages to complement organic and sponsored results and attempt to provide answers to the query instead of just pointing to websites that might deliver that information. In this work, we analyze the appearance and evolution of SERP features in the two leading web search engines, Google Search and Microsoft Bing. Using a sample of SERP from the Internet Archive, we analyzed the appearance and evolution of these features. We found that SERP are becoming more diverse in terms of elements, aggregating content from different verticals and including more features that provide direct answers.