How to tell what kind of page Google wants for a keyword

Google's results page tells you what kind of page it wants to show, and SEO by Zaweba reads it for you. Paste the results page for your keyword into step 3 of the guided audit and the reader works out the search intent (informational, commercial, transactional, local or navigational) and the winning format. It then compares that with your page, and if they don't match, the mismatch becomes the top priority in your plan.

That ordering is deliberate. No amount of polish makes a product page rank for a search that wants a guide.

The five kinds of intent

Informational searches want an answer or an explanation. Commercial searches are people comparing options before they buy, so reviews, comparisons and best of lists tend to win. Transactional searches want to buy or book now, and product or service pages with prices and clear calls to act usually rank. Local searches want a business nearby, often shown with a map pack. Navigational searches are looking for a particular site or brand.

Most keywords lean clearly one way once you look at what ranks, even when the words themselves seem ambiguous.

How the reader decides

The results page reader is a rule driven parser. It reads the organic results with their titles, snippets, bolded terms, sitelinks and star ratings, and it notes the features on the page: featured snippet, People also ask, related searches, local pack, shopping, images, videos, top stories, knowledge panel, AI overview and ads. Those features say a lot. A local pack points to local intent, shopping results to transactional, a featured snippet and a long People also ask box to informational.

From that it works out the intent and the winning format, meaning the kind of page that is ranking: a guide, a list, a product page, a category page and so on. Its rules live in an editable file, Rules\serp-rules.json, if you ever need to adjust how it reads a page.

Reading the result

On the dashboard, the Google results tab shows what the reader found. The intent and format comparison sets what is winning against your page, which the page checks have classified by page type. When they agree, you can get on with the detailed fixes. When they don't, Next steps puts the mismatch first, with what to do, where, why, the likely impact and the effort.

What to do about a mismatch

You have two honest options. Change the page to match, for instance by adding a proper guide section above a service page, or turning a single product page into a comparison when the search is commercial. Or keep the page as it is and target a different term that matches it, often a longer phrase. The Can you win this term check suggests longer-tail alternatives when a head term is out of reach, which helps here too.

Next steps can also suggest pages that should exist, including page types your competitors have and you don't. Sometimes the right answer is a new page for the search, with your existing page left to do its own job.

Checking again

Intent can change over time, especially around seasons and news. Paste a fresh results page when you re-run the audit. SEO by Zaweba keeps every scan, so the History page lets you see both your position and what the page looked like each time.