The Google Local SERP Today

The question of self-preferencing by Google, where they favor their own properties over competitors, has come into sharper focus recently as part of anti-trust investigations in the US and DMA compliance hearings in the EU. And we have covered how Google historically leveraged its privileged position to dominate other product categories (e.g, Maps). But I explored SERPs for some new EU consumer research, I was struck by prominence of self-referential elements like People also ask (PAA), People also search for (PAS), as well as various local elements and features.

Space Allocated to Different Content Types

Search results for "car dealers NYC" embodies this new SERP reality by also surfacing a "People search next" module. That's in addition to the Local Pack, the PAA & PAS results. This motivated me to sit down and calculate how Google was allocating digital turf between the different SERP elements.

As you can see in the chart, almost half of the total space available is being used to drive searchers into other Google content, either within the SERPs or to other Google properties like Maps, Images or the Local Finder. The self-preferencing elements (49%) are roughly equally split between Local and the various PAA-type modules and search filters.

The SERP itself, shown below, covered roughly 5 full screen-scrolls down the page, with the first screen and part of the second filled with ads. Ads, in the prime real estate at the top of the SERP, covered 24% of the allocated space. The first organic search result was several scrolls down, with organic results in total occupying 17% of the total area.

Below is a video of the experience.

Car Dealers Mobile Search Result

Below is the Car Dealers SERP as a static image. I have annotated the page to make the case visually.

The story of the frog, sitting in gradually warming water until it's boiled alive, turns out to not to be scientifically true. But dam, it's getting hot in here.