For years, “ranking on page one of Google” was easy enough to understand.
The exact layout changed from search to search, but the basic structure was familiar: ads, perhaps a Local Pack, organic results, and a collection of features such as People Also Ask, featured snippets, videos, images, or shopping results.
Businesses learned how to compete inside that system.
Today, the system itself is changing.
Google Search is becoming less like a static list of ranked pages and more like a dynamic answer-and-discovery environment.…