An Introduction to SERPs and APIs

Photo of author

(Newswire.net — June 8, 2020) — 

The Introduction

‘What are geodes?’ Don’t know? No problem, just google it. Need help completing an assignment, use Bing. ‘What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow?’ Easy peasy, just try Yahoo! Weather Site.

This is the commonplace advice you tend to get every time you have a query and need some answers. In short, everyone relies on these search engines for help 24/7.

But, we will be discussing the results you get every time you make a query on these search engines. Yes, we are talking about SERPs.

What are SERPs?

So, every time you enter a query into a search engine, the listings of web pages that you get as a result of your search are SERPs. SERPs, also known as Search Engine Result Pages, are always unique. 

Why are SERPs always different?

To begin with, most search engines have experiments conducted frequently to produce more innate and relevant responses. Thus, the ever-changing SERPs. Go to Zenscrape for more information.

However, other factors apply as well. If you were to use the same computer, the same keywords (specific words or phrases), and make the same search within a matter of minutes, the resulting SERP would look identical. 

But, will invariably have subtle differences. This is because, your social settings, your browsing history, your physical current location, even the medium you are using, factor into getting you a different SERP.

And, SERPs tend to vary also due to the fact that some SERPs are organic whilst others are paid.

What is the difference between organic SERPs and paid SERPs?

Organic SERPs are displayed to the user as a response to the user’s query through the algorithms that are used to generate SERPs. 

Paid SERPs, on the other hand, are web pages that are paid to be displayed by an advertiser.

Now, you must understand that there are three primary kinds of internet searches. It is the difference between these searches that brings about an organic SERP or paid SERP.

Informational searches are done by the user to get information about a given topic. 

Navigational searches are done by the user to locate a specific website. 

Transactional searches are done by the user with commercial intent in mind. It’s here you’ll find keywords such as ‘buy’ or ‘price’. And, it’s here that paid SERPs come into the scenario.

So, SERPs are great but it’s still a lot of data that the user has to sift through to get the exact information they want. 

Can this dilemma be solved?

Welcome, APIs. Application Programming Interfaces, aka, APIs are the easiest way to help you sift through tons of relevant data to the most vital information you need.

But, what are APIs?

APIs are a toolset that programmers use to create new software. And, it is the software intermediary that allows two applications to communicate with each other. Let me explain with an example. 

So, if you want to know about the weather, you’ll ask what you want into Google, and you’ll be provided with plenty of websites that can be used to find some answers. But, you have to visit these websites to get answers.

Siri makes use of APIs. Siri gets weather reports from Yahoo! Weather Site. The APIs get that information from Yahoo! Weather Site and bring it straight to you.

In Conclusion

Hopefully, you have a good idea about SERPs and APIs by now. But, if you still need more help to understand, go to Mulesoft for more information.