Which term describes results that are not paid advertisements?

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The main idea is the distinction between paid placements and results earned by relevance. Organic results are those listings you see because the search engine judged them to be the most relevant and high quality for your query, based on factors like content relevance, authority, page usability, and overall trust signals. They aren’t purchased or paid for to appear; you can improve them through good search engine optimization and solid content, but you don’t pay for a guaranteed spot. Advertisements and sponsored results, in contrast, are paid placements labeled as ads and usually appear at the top or bottom of the page. “Featured results” can refer to special blocks like snippets, which aren’t the standard non-paid listings. So the term that describes results not paid advertisements is organic results.