Abstract
People have a high level of trust in search engines, especially Google, but only limited knowledge of them, as numerous studies have shown. This leads to the question: To what extent is this trust justified considering the lack of familiarity among users with how search engines work and the business models they are founded on? We assume that trust in Google, search engine preferences and knowledge of result types are interrelated. To examine this assumption, we conducted a representative online survey with n = 2012 German Internet users. We show that users with little search engine knowledge are more likely to trust and use Google than users with more knowledge. A contradiction revealed itself – users strongly trust Google, yet they are unable to adequately evaluate search results. For those users, this may be problematic since it can potentially affect knowledge acquisition. Consequently, there is a need to promote user information literacy to create a more solid foundation for user trust in search engines. The impact of our study lies in emphasising the need for creating appropriate training formats to promote information literacy.
Highlights
Search engines enjoy a good reputation and a high degree of trust among users, as numerous user studies [1,2] and surveys [3] have shown
It can be assumed that user understanding of increasingly complex search engine result pages (SERPs) is inadequate and that users are unaware of their lack of knowledge
As described in the introduction, we aim to investigate the relationships between user trust in Google, the ability to differentiate results influenceable by search engine optimisation (SEO) or paid search marketing (PSM), and search engine preference
Summary
Search engines enjoy a good reputation and a high degree of trust among users, as numerous user studies [1,2] and surveys [3] have shown. It can be assumed that user understanding of increasingly complex search engine result pages (SERPs) is inadequate and that users are unaware of their lack of knowledge. This can lead to clicks that are not the result of an informed decision; for instance, when a user clicks on an advertisement assuming it is an organic result, that is, a result from the general Web crawl of the search engine [7]. As an eye-tracking study showed, ads receive significantly more visual attention when they are displayed on a mobile device (small screen) than when they are shown on a desktop PC (large screen) [13]
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