How a page appears on the search engine results page is almost exclusively based on what is on the page and
how it was coded. There is no numeric score that can be given to how well a sites listings appear; instead it is a
determination if the page is successful at meeting its marketing goals.
Google Knowledge Graph or Panel
The Google Knowledge Panel can show up for search terms where information exists in Google's Knowledge Graph. Information comes from open source and licensed databases and other sources on the web, such as Wikipedia and Wikidata. The Knowledge Graph is automatically generated and covers places, people, businesses, as well as other entities. It provides a quick snapshot of information on a topic based on Google’s understanding. If you are the entity or an official representative of an entity depicted in a knowledge panel, you can claim the panel and suggest changes
The existence of a knowledge graph that tells the visitor the operating hours, phone number, etc, -- gives a visitor information that effects how visitors feel about a site. The information in the knowledge graph can be supplied via a "Google My Business," account or schema markup.
Brick and and mortar businesses, and organizations with an address can create a Google My Business account which creates a Google Knowledge Panel for the business; and a map listing.
The panel will then show up when somebody searches for the business name.
Listing one's business is the fastest way to create a panel for a business, although it is not a requirement. Using Schema, On and off page SEO also creates a panel.
The Site's Name and Icon
On Google, The site name or brand is placed before the link in the search engine entry. Adjacent to the favorite icon or logo for the site. If the name is not specified in a schema, it is determined by factors such as what is commonly being used for link text to the home page; And the icon is normally located in the root directory of a site with the name of favicon.ico. However, a meta tag exists to specify what should be used as the site icon.
The title and description are two of the most important elements of a search listing and directly effect how many people click on the link to visit the site.
The title will almost always be what is placed in the the title tag of the HTML. However, search engines may also consider other options when choosing a title.
In some cases charactors, which are normally used as seperators, are used in titles where sites are essentially using two titles. Search engines may choose to use
one of these two titles.
For example a title of "Solution Smith | Marketing by Design" may create the situation where only half of the title used in the HTML is used
for the link in the search result page. The Company name or site name being used next to the URL and the second portion of the title being used for the link.
If you don't want this behavior don't split the title with non-latin charactors.
Page URL vs Breadcrumbs
On Google; Before the title link is shown, the URL for the page or its breadcrumbs are shown. Breadcrumbs give the visitor relevant information in a human readable form, while URLs are more cryptic or have no meaning.
Breadcrumbs have both an ARIA HTML semantic and schema associated with them.
Google uses multiple signals to determine when a page was published. Schema and Sematic HTML can both be used to give this information to Google. Note Google does not use the update date.
The Schema used can also provide author information. Bylines and author bios are important for building trust, establishing author authority, and improving E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) signals.
The meta description is seldomly used on the search result page. Instead the engine looks for text on the page that it feels best matches the
search query. A search showing the same page using a different query often results in a different but better description for the search.
Using the keywords naturally in the text of the page allows the engine to find the best match. Placing words, which may be used for searching, together in a sentence - assists the engine in
finding a better description.
Navigational Links in Search
Google has been updating the design and style of its search result pages. Site links come in two styles the traditional panel under the site and site links as part of the description.
The description-based site links are new and have somewhat of a cleaner design style.
Schema is unambigous, and can send the signal while semantics is ambigous.
Jump to links, when a table of contents is used on a large page may also be used by the engine to create a better snippet and better user experiance. These jump to links are shown when
they are a good match for the search query.
When headlines are used according to their proper semantics, of creating a table of contents, the headlines themselves may be used as the description.
The headline tags where designed to allow a TOC to be automatically generated from a web page, but the headline tags are often misused as a style tag. When headline the tags are correctly used and are linked: A TOC can become a snippet for the search results.
Google Review Snippets
Review snippets, and Critical Reviews in the Knowledge panel can be provided using Schema. Google's usage of this information is subject to Google's E-E-A-T evaluation for the site, and page.
Reviews can be coded with schema as a JSON element or schema as properties of HTML tags. A Google review snippet may be provided for the vast majority of products, things, and places. They can be signal-person reviews or aggregated reviews.
