In Google we no longer trust.
A new study from the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future has found that a growing number of people no longer believe that search results are reliable and accurate.
The survey found that only 51% of people trust information provided by search engines, down from 62% in 2006. Google, as the most popular search engine in the United States, isn’t trusted by nearly half (49%) of the people who use it, an interesting result.
A standout was a finding that after seven years of studying online behavior and attitudes, the Digital Future Report “found that the Internet is perceived by users to be a more important source of information for them — this over all other principal media, including television, radio, newspapers, and books.” An outstanding result, however the trust levels for all media aren’t particularly high, with only 46 percent of Internet users saying that most or all of the information online is generally reliable.
Full results as follow:
I still trust Google more than my government.
I trust most info provided by the beloved search engine though.
search engines try to stay one step ahead of the people who are constantly looking for ways to game the system and up their crappy link pages. There are a lot of scammers online doing all tricks they can to increase their search engine rankings.
So I look at the macro of only half trusting what they see online and the micro of trusting my search results – if i’m searching for a pinpoint of data – say the weather, there isn’t a lot of leeway and I trust the source (unless there is some conspiracy to say that Alaska is -18degrees when it’s really paradise to keep people out). But if I’m doing searches on something less tangible, which is half of my searches, it frequently requires several searches and many bad, wrong, BS, spammy, etc. results before I aggregate the data into acceptable answers or pieces of the answer. So to me if I use search long enough I’ll trust it but trust less one piece of data unless going to NASA or something.
The problem with Google or any giant is that we fail to separate the interface from the backend. No one can match Google’s backend. But a thousand people can create a better interface.
The atheism cannot be blamed on the backend. What Google and other giants need to do is provide really open APIs and promote these third party add-ons.
Another curse is PageRank. It’s more to do with politics than relevance. Google has an excuse – “only machines can read a billion pages per sec so we’ll stick to PR”.
Are we so dumb. We can’t think of a better way to machine rank.
But what can you do…it’s not as if a divorce will result in bliss. We have seen many posts on the alternatives and they are all lacking in one way or another and fall way short of Google. So again…what do you do?
Actually, it’s all about the might buck. Don’t think for one minute Google doesn’t find ways to tweak rankings, (controlled by their flawless back end ) on the amount of money spent with them more so than traffic or relevance.
Do No Evil my aunties patoot. Cash Talks and BS walks.
Not surprising. If you don’t know the right question to ask in Google the odds are you would be searching for a while and might not even find an answer.
Think about it. All the information you need is within reach – you might not remember the phone number or the address of that thai restaurant so you do a Google search to remember where it is or to go to the website that has the reviews.
I see the current Google as a bookmarking service for existing information rather than a search tool to discover valuable information.
You choose how you get [receive] information and the latest information can never be found in the current search results.
That said, Google has other valuable services that simplify access to information rather than aid the discovery of valuable information. Google maps, Google movies, Google local. The data is there and Google makes it simple to access it.
Freaking waste of time
W(ho)TF cares what USC thinks – really!! The search engine is being used more and more and it is taking market share away from the other engines.
Duncan, this is what happens when you scratch your ***** all day and can’t spend enough grey matter to think of a decent article.
Get some Preparation-H, tell us you did and we will observe if the quality of your articles improve. We will then ask USC to write an article about it.
“only 46 percent of Internet users saying that most or all of the information online is generally reliable”
See, that’s a scary figure because very little of the information online is generally reliable. The fact that almost half the population blindly accepts what they read is disturbing. If the question was if someone was able to find reliable information online, that would be a different matter — the important thing is the human ability to filter information.
kit: Make a useful contribution please. Are you out of work? Your comment is a waste of time.
I use the Internet everyday, I actually don’t remember a time with out it. It’s all I use, it’s all I trust…well I also trust my hair dresser.
it doesn’t say that 49% of people don’t trust google. it says that 51% of people believe that information produced by search engines is reliable or accurate. this hardly suggests that google is purposely producing inaccurate results for it’s own gain.
google is only as trustworthy as the websites that it indexes. a bit like the US government actually believing that there were WMD’s in Iraq – oh no, sorry that’s a bad example – they *did* make it all up
amolpatil2k and Antonio Altamirano,
allthat.com is an interesting third party search tool that can be used to not only search google, yahoo and other big engines, but you can “keep looking” for your topic if you don’t find it at first. You can also fine tune or filter the results as they come in. Great for craigslist searches.
Did survey respondents believe they were answering the question “do you trust the search engines to give you the best websites”, or the question “do you trust the websites the search engine gives to have accurate data”? These seem like very different questions to me.
Google has gotten worse recently–it’s a matter of their new approach.
Ever since Universal Search was released, I’ve noticed a dropoff in reliability and accuracy. Recent attempts to make Google easier to use by guessing exactly what the user wants have made it harder to use in general, at least for me. Google needs to take into account that users will, over time, realize how Google “ticks” and phrase their searches appropriately.
But in which sense people don’t trust these results? They don’t trust the websites information they found or they don’t trust that the search engine give them the most accurate ranking? I must admit that some information on the Internet are false, or sometimes don’t even cite the source. For the accurate ranking, that is also sort of true. Most of the time the first three picks are not the best qualitiwise.
I’m not sure the term trust is so accurate. People use Google to find what they want. It may not be so good, but it’s most definitely the best out there. So I wouldn’t say I don’t trust them, even if they’re not %100 accurate, because there’s nobody I trust more.
Just get your resumes on the web googlers, we will call ya.
M$ bullshit and FUD, no matter how you disguise it.
People don’t trust Google? Don’t trust the information provided by search engines? What information is that? If Google, or any search engine, is trustworthy is easy to test by seeing if what comes up as a result of the search is at all related to what you searched for. Not sure why search engines would be responsible for the content they are providing search for.
If anything, this is showing a lack of trust in humanity. But those of us in the know already didn’t have a high opinion of humanity — and this survey just supports that.
i go to the second page first
No comment.
Love the title!
I think majority of people out of that 51% might be further cross checking information from different sources rather than 100% relying on search engines.
Like all stories about polls, it leaves out the questions used and the methodology.
In general, trust is a source invested thing.
I only trust sites which I’ve looked at and done some evaluation.
I don’t trust any search to bring back what I’m looking for, since I seldom get what I am looking for.
By nature, current search engine technology is ’stupid’, by which I mean that the engine has not got even an algorithmic ‘understanding’ of what you are looking for, and can only find it if the words you search match the words it finds (spelling errors or another way of categorizing things causes them to be invisible to the search.
Since SE’s began selling page ranking, they have become less trustworthy.
Since the media in general have been accustomed to slanting the news in the US very greatly for many decades, nobody really trusts what they say, and the government is even less trustworthy–a Congress that passes something called the Patriot Act, which removes civil rights from the population, deserves no trust.
A President who is certain that thew economy is ‘healthy’ when anyone living in it can easily see that we are getting inflation due to our insane debt level, that the trust in our currency is gone–rightly, and that good jobs are scarce, also deserves no trust.
Trust has to be earned (remember your parents telling you that?) Once lost it is difficult to regain.
Our media and government have been caught so many time in baldfaced lies, that it is a wonder that they have anyone trusting them at all!
The “War on Drugs” has made drugs easily available in every crossroads in the US, and destroyed much of our credibility overseas.
The “War on Terror” has increased the very marginal threat of terrorists rather than reduce the threat–and has been used to turn the US into a dictatorship where the President can declare anyone at anytime to be an ‘unperson,’ entitled to no rights whatsoever.
The ‘Peace’ in Iraq has created a training and recruiting ground for frustrated, unemployed, poorly housed, clothed and fed people willing to die to change their status–we call them terrorists, and we create them daily.
Like most people overseas, we like the people in the US, but even citizens dislike and fear their government.
I’ll trust search engines fully–never. I’ll trust them more when they can find things for me when I’m not certain how it will be categorized or labeled.
The Net is living proof that ‘everyone has an equal right to express their opinion, but not all opinions are equal.’
So long as my search engines continue to bring in obvious crap, I have to evaluate the data sources it returns individually–and even when it doesn’t, I’ll still need to decide for myself if the actual source is trustworthy.
No matter what you search for, eBay & other sales sights will promise that they have it in their SE adds and even in returned links–but these links are automated garbage build on the fly from the search terms–much of the time the link has no relationship to the search, and after a short time you learn that a ‘we have ____’ return from eBay on a SE is probably a lie.
People develop trust in sources based upon their past experience, based upon the results of this poll, for whatever reason, people overall have not had very good experiences with Google returning valid data.
If not google, you should trust god, only god. Amen
If you’ve had any experience with the way Google treats their Adwords customers, you might decide that they are no more trustworthy than any other big, rich bully. They arbitrarily raise prices and shut people off without warning, and then they tell you that you like it. It’s bad, and getting worse. Why should we expect them to behave themselves in their other activities? Don’t trust them.
It all depends on what you are looking for. People (like myself) are always looking for ways to be positioned in order to drive revenue. If I don’t get onto the first page in the results, my competitors will. The problem is that people who use the search engines as a trade tool adapt to their market shifts faster then your average user does. If you know how to use the search engines you can still find just about anything you are looking for. We just need to adapt our habits to filter out the crap manually.
One thing to keep in mind. Most people who try to position themselves do it for financial gain. That being said, time and effort are put into analytics in order to determine which terms convert. Search engines are our friends, we just need to know how to play with them.
Dear Carl,
“They arbitrarily raise prices and shut people off without warning, and then they tell you that you like it. ” Google doesn’t even set a price for showing your ads, adwords is auction based, remember? You set your own price and a major determinant is what other people bid for that spot that you would like to occupy as well.
Plus Google doesn’t “shut people off” without warning. The adwords system sends automated warnings with clear descriptions as to what is wrong, no one needs to do it manually.
And for this survey, it is nothing but a swiss cheese until someone declares the questions asked, the sample used and the methodology. If you’ll try to denigrate someone at least do it seriously so that people actually take your words into account.
One should not equate general distrust of Google with the related “distrust factor” the referenced survey implies. The number of search engines used across the entirety of the web is extends well beyond that of google, Yahoo!, MSN and ASK, and having used and/or advertised across many of the second and third tier search engines, can easily understand why people would distrust search engines as a group.
Google, on the other hand, is a notable standout … having built a significant worldwide brand and customer base over the last decade, as well as a significant presence in the financial markets. Looking ahead, Google is preparing a wide range of initiatives that would have seemed preposterous a few years ago. No other firm is as well positioned for continuing advancement is search, not to mention their evolving “unstated” intention break the worldwide stranglehold of MSN with cloud computing.
Bottom line … trust is much like beauty, its found only in the eye of the beholder. Cheers all!
Until searches are based on content instead of popularity the same trend is going to continue for every new search engine. The hard thing to swallow is that the entire internet is full of people who care more about selling crap than producing content, so that model is not likely to gain popularity anytime soon.
Sites like Arkayne are trying to change things but its slow going in a net full of hype.
Is it not obvious that the people behind these “news” which are not news at all are themselves behind a search engine, namely sitepronews.com, are in their own minds rivals of google and someone terribly sick at the marketing department there thinks that spreading idiocratic news “based on studies” that google’s time’s over is gonna make their s.e. look better ?
How sick and closed minded do you have to be to believe such a hoax ?
I have always loved google exactly because of the 99.9% of the relevance of search results and as long as results are as accurate as they are now, I’ll always use and recommend Google.
People use Google to find what they want
I do not believe claims made by any study, query or poll unless I know the question asked.
Assuming the claim is correct and not influenced by the question, I would ask,
WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE?????
Surprise
The best search engines I have ever seen are… people, not engines. The engines are cold and stupid, I am still waiting for A.I.
Go Social: forum, blogs, twitter, Facebook, MySpace everything is good. Do not be lazy. Ask Ask and Ask.
I want to believe in… a SERP?!?? What does it mean? Automatic true???
Imagine that your ads are appearing in the first SERP. Ok you are famous but are you the best?
It’s not real surprising, and the study may actually be pretty accurate. take the major advertising agencies out there today. They will “sell” an advertising package that includes page ranking on search engines. SEO has been the rage! people will pay big bucks to have their widget show up first. So, why else would people begin to loose faith in search engines? I find that most of the time, the real info I want on a search engine no longer is necessarily on the first few pages of the search results. I have to weed through the crap. I agree with a lot of the comments here – It’s not the fault of a Google, Yahoo, or any other engine. I blame folks that rely on search placement as a cornerstone of their web business plan that screws up any results retrieved!
I am actually finding wikipedia a little more useful to find alot of information these days.
The beauty of internet searching is there so many reports on the same subject, this makes is easier to try to reach an informed conclusion as to what the truth really is. Most recent was the earlier conflicting reports regarding Bhutto’s assination.
My point is this: read several reports covering the same subject, try to be objective and wonder. is there an agenda being pushed here instead of the truth.
I say: truth will open one’s eyes, the key is locating conflicting sources covering the same item then reaching a conclusion based upon the information presented, follow up the earlier reports and soon after the “rush” to “scoop” by the presenters is over, the facts usually surface.
Is that all they could come up with to challenge Google’s authority?!
Jitendra, you are undoubtedly a fan of mighty Google. And why shouldn’t anyone be one. Google led the numbers games, they led the cleanliness game, and now they seem to be leading even the revenue sharing game.
It is in our DNA to idolise the giants. I am no one to counter that tendency.
Similarly Lee made a point about choice. Choice is what the Net is known for. Imagine going from a handful of newspapers to a thousand news sources. I am not going to counter Lee either.
My only objection is that irrespective of what Google is all about, we need to separate the crawling from the interfacing. The process of ranking has to be much more transparent because it all boils down to opportunity cost.
If the stuff I was looking for is lying in the backend but the default interface couldn’t get it to me, I would want some other interface, pronto.
Dear Dolores,
“Plus Google doesn’t “shut people off” without warning. The adwords system sends automated warnings with clear descriptions as to what is wrong, no one needs to do it manually. ”
I’ve been using Adwords for years. They have never sent me an automated warning when they disabled my keywords. The traffic simply disappeared. I would then go their site to discover time and time again that they have shut off good performing keywords unless I either improved the quality of the ads, or paid them more money. The ads were already optimized and getting click-thru rates of 2% or better and the traffic from these ads was making Google more than a thousand dollars a month. They shut them off regardless. That’s pretty strange because it didn’t seem to benefit anyone, least of all them.
“And for this survey, it is nothing but a swiss cheese until someone declares the questions asked, the sample used and the methodology. If you’ll try to denigrate someone at least do it seriously so that people actually take your words into account.”
I’m only sharing my personal experience, and I’m not the only one who has been through this. Why do you accuse me of being dishonest?
Dear all,
What is the problem? We know this for many years now: we don’t have any measure for quality in Information Technology!
I studied physics and from day 1 I learned that a result without an indication for “what it is worth” is useless. In the last 25 years I’ve build a lot of financial reporting systems, MIS, DSS, BSC, CRM, etc systems but we never knew whether the result was correct or not. We simply didn’t know and we still don’t know. Giving an indication for precision is unknown in Information Technology. Something like “the profit of Enron = M$ 1, plus/minus 100%”.
What is new in the remark “we can’t trust the result of a Google search”? May be we all love to believe in computer results and may be it is getting time to realise that we shouldn’t believe everything coming from IT?
May be it is getting time we all realise that IT is not without errors. Like “normal real life”.
So the problem using Google
Hmmm…Interesting. I wonder why people don’t trust Google
Google Adwords, however useful they may be for advanced users, they do not benefit the mom and pop enterprises. The pricing structure is usually too high for those without venture capital.