The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Google search result pages are becoming more diverse and even interactive, which makes any clickthrough study out there much less reliable, because no two sets of search results are the same.
But how much control do writers and content creators have over how their content is represented in search? As it turns out, they do have quite a few options when it comes to optimizing their search snippets!
The anatomy of a standard search snippet
The standard Google search snippet has changed over the years, but in essence all the key elements are still there:
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The clickable title or headline of the snippet (in blue)
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The description of that page (about two lines long — it was lengthened[1] for no particular reason a few years ago, but now seems to be back to two lines)
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The URL path (used to be in green, now it is black)
On a mobile device, there’s also a tiny logo next to the URL:
Here’s how much control you have over these standard elements of your search snippet (in the order they currently appear):
Logo
Google will use your site favicon when deciding which image to show next to your URL. This means that you have full control over this part of the search snippet.
URL path
These days, Google will do its best to show the meaningful URL path[2] (almost like a breadcrumb) instead of simply the URL of the page. This consists of:
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The domain: I don’t have any research to support this, but I personally always scan domain names when choosing what to click. That being said, your