Do people trust their search engine results?

Google Search Engine

Google has always tried to make sure that the highest possible content is shown whilst using their search engine. However, over the past several years they have been putting in even more effort to ensure that its search results are consistently accurate and trustworthy. Google has invested huge amounts of money and time to develop their algorithms, allowing them to organise the increasing amounts of content and websites, therefore they can be prioritised most effectively.

Do People use Google to make important decisions?

A recent survey was carried out on 1100 respondents from around the world and it first focused on information regarding important life decisions, such as financial, medical or legal decisions. They found that over 50% of respondents indicated that they would frequently make important life decisions based on Google’s information, whilst only 10% of people suggested that they would never make these types of decisions using Google’s information.

Does everyone trust the information that they find on Google?

This survey also emphasised the amount of untrustworthy information that is found on Google. It is interesting that although a lot of people use information that they find on Google to make important decisions, many of these respondents did admit that they sometimes find unreliable information on Google. On the other hand, 29% of the respondents do feel as though they rarely or never see these types of results when using Google.

When analysing the results, it was clear to see that the older the user, the more likely they were to indicate that they had seen this untrustworthy information within their results. This shows that the younger searchers on Google have the most trust in the pages that Google displays.

Does your featured snippet get read?

Furthermore, the conductors of this survey also aimed to find the number of people that used the featured snippets within their Google searches and the extent to which they trust these snippets. This gave some interesting results showing that searchers below 25 are 100% more likely to trust the snippets than the oldest users over 65. Therefore, younger searchers are much more likely to read the featured snippets before visiting the web page and this will influence whether they trust the site.

What this means for your business?

In conclusion, the majority of people trust the information that they find on Google. This is why it is so important that your business has a strong SEO, making sure that your website can rank on Google. Therefore, allowing the website and consequently the business to be trusted by potential leads and customers.

This information is also important depending on the audience that your business is targeting. In the case of the older users being less trusting in the results they find on Google, the businesses that are targeting leads from this age group will need to place more effort into making their websites and featured snippets clearer and more trusting. Therefore, the searchers will be less likely to think the website has misinformation.