Spotted by Alex Chitu at Google Operating System Blog, there was a video uploaded, which was at one point viewable, but has since been made private, talking about the product, which would be found at google.com/trustedstores, though you only get an error message if you go there now. Here’s an image of the video, which is now unplayable in public.

Chitu quotes the video as saying that the program “makes it easy for online shoppers to identify stores that provide an excellent online shopping experience.” Chitu says, “It’s likely that Google will show a Trusted Store badge next to the ads for the online stores that provide a great experience and have a good track record of shipping on time and providing excellent customer service.”

This wouldn’t be the only thing Google is doing to establish trust in its search results, whether they’re organic or paid results. Google+, which Google considers to be largely about identity, is a major factor at establishing trust.

Google’s +1 button, which appears not only on organic results and web content, but on paid results, will likely be a major factor in establishing trust as well. As discussed here, it will likely be not only about how many +1s, but who is doing the +1ing.

As far as building trust for your store using the +1 button, you want to note that Google recently announced a couple of e-commerce platform partnerships around the button.

Google says it doesn’t have anything to announce in relation to Trusted Stores right now, but I’d imagine we’ll see an announcement soon.

Do you think Google’s results need improvement? Share your thoughts here.

Some of you probably don’t need an 8-page article to tell you that, but this story in particular paints a picture of a business that goes out of its way to treat customers poorly so that they’ll leave negative comments, which have (in the past) worked to boost its visibility on Google, as the search engine has given more focus to local businesses. It sounds crazy, but it has apparently worked, though since the story brought exposure to it, Google appears to have dropped the rankings in this instance. The point is that there is no telling how widespread this kind of thing is  - not businesses intentionally treating customers poorly for search visibility (though I’m sure this one business isn’t the only one to engage in such behavior), but just Google giving undeserved visibility to businesses that get more bad reviews than good. 

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, who was tapped as a source for the NYT piece, provides a great deal of further analysis on Google’s practices here. 

"Having seen the crazy things that Google will rank high over time, it’s easy to become jaded and think ‘that’s the way it is,’ he writes. "Many SEOs I know feel this way and have largely given up assuming anything will change, or that Google will take the SEO view of its ranking problems seriously. Heck, Google still won’t let people look up all the backlinks leading to a site, which might allow outsiders to do a better job helping them police their results."

This is one of the key selling points of Blekko, the new search engine to the party, which both lets people look up said backlinks and relies on community to establish relevancy. See our interview with Blekko co-founder Rich Skrenta here:

More WebProNews Videos

"It’s all stuff that can be dismissed as ‘inside baseball’ and not what typical people care about," Sullivan added. "But typical people do care, do get puzzled…what Google ranks tops can have a terrible impact on real consumers."

This is true to some extent. If Google places the bad results over the good ones (and as Sullivan points out, Bing is no better at this than Google, and Bing provides results for Yahoo now), and consumers are duped into going with those results, it is those consumers who will pay the price. 

Buyer Beware

However, it is ultimately the user’s responsibility to use their own judgment and do their homework before making any decisions or suffer the consequences. As Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine says, " The internet doesn’t nullify the First Law of Commerce: caveat emptor. When I had my now-legendary problems with Dell, I kicked myself for not doing a search of ‘dell sucks’ before buying my computer. That’s my responsibility as a shopper. And, as I pointed out at the time, Google would have given me the information I needed."

There’s something to be said for this kind of consumer investigating. The information is out there. It’s up to you how you go about getting it, which is why social media has become an important go-to channel for trusted results. You can just as easily get poor results from social media, but you define who your friends are and what their opinions mean to you. 

Google and other search engines know this of course. It’s why Bing made a deal for Facebook results. In fact, it’s why Google recently launched a social recommendation engine (Hotpot) directly tied to local listings.

It’s not as if Google isn’t trying to overcome this problem. Google knows it’s not perfect. The problem with that recommendation engine is that it’s not where consumers’ friends already are. That’s why Facebook is such a key component to this whole thing, and that’s why Facebook in turn is a direct competitor to Google and why Google is trying desperately to build consumers’ social graphs on their own properties. 

It’s Ultimately in Users’ Hands

If users want Google to be their way of finding trusted information, it’s in their interest to build their social graphs through Google. For Google’s part, it’s a matter of a. getting customers to realize that, and b. getting users to care that much about Google being the place where they get their info. There are plenty of people out there that would just as soon go elsewhere, and plenty that simply don’t trust Google. 

Neither of these are easy tasks, and this bodes well for Facebook, which continues to get integrated into more of consumers daily habits. 

The trust that comes with social and human curation is important across the entire search board. It applies to shopping. It applies to news. It applies to information in general. As the web continues to grow, so to will the importance of knowing who to trust. That means real relationships (social media), and as far as search is concerned, that means access to those relationships. 

This is why social is critical to Google, and why search will continue to become more important to Facebook. It’s also why Twitter (along with Twitter search) is such an effective news medium.

Related: What if Facebook Goes Search While Google Struggles to Go Social?

Do you think social adds relevance? Tell us what you think in the comments.

The research, which polled 3000 adults, revealed that while the average adult freely divulges a string of personal details on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, most would not give friends or colleagues their PIN number.

Despite 86 per cent of adults saying they would never hand over their PIN to someone they know, one in twenty people have their home address visible on a social networking sites.

Similarly, whilst only five per cent of people would let their best mate have access to their PIN number, 50 per cent of respondents have their relationship status visible online. 28 per cent also have their partner’s name visible and 20 per cent have the name of their employer visible online.

Unbelievably nearly two thirds of people also have their date of birth on networking sites which is always a security question when telephoning banks or building societies.

Speaking on the findings Paul Wooding, Head of UK Public Sector for NetApp comments: “It’s ironic that so many people are cautious with friends and family when it comes to security details, yet include really personal data on social networking sites.”

“It’s really alarming that people have so much confidential information like a home address available on their Facebook profile. As soon as you update your profile saying you are off on holiday all your hundreds of friends and now potentially anyone searching on Google, will know your home is empty for the next few weeks.”

The poll also revealed that a blasé seven per cent of people said that the whole point of social networking sites was so people can keep track of you and know what you’re up to.

Although a quarter of people did admit that the amount of information they had freely available on the World Wide Web did sometimes worry them.

But when it comes to our nearest and dearest it’s a different story, with less than half of people trusting their partner with their PIN number for their main cash card.

But it’s not just our friends who we don’t trust – three quarters of people said they do not trust the government with their personal data and more than two thirds also said that they feel that the government acts like Big Brother, and knows far too much about them.

For more than half of Brits (52 per cent) the biggest bone of contention is the government having access to our medical details.

The next big issue for respondents was data records on salaries, which 20 per cent objected to being held by the powers that be. One in twenty British adults were also sensitive about the government holding information on the amount of benefits we receive.

These issues were reflected in the concern around the security of government data shown by the poll. 78 per cent of those polled advised that incidents of public sector workers losing laptops containing personal data on members of the public worried them, with medical information and then salary information being the items they are most worried about being leaked.

A spokesman for NetApp added: “The risks of the government data being leaked or lost is minimal to the risks of security lapses on social networking sites. People need to look after themselves and really think about the information they make visible.”

“Technology today means that organisations are well equipped to be able to store and manage data effectively. The fear is perhaps heightened because of high profile cases of data breaches but in reality many of us are sharing very personal and sometimes sensitive information with the whole world without giving it much thought.”

INFORMATION PEOPLE DIVULGE ON NETWORKING SITES
 
Full name: 92 per cent
Hometown: 62 per cent
Date of Birth: 59 per cent
Relationship status: 49 per cent
Secondary school: 40 per cent
Marital status: 33 per cent
University/College: 30 per cent
Partners name: 28 per cent
Employer: 20 per cent
Job title: 18 per cent
Parental status: 17 per cent
Primary school: 16 per cent
Children’s names: 9 per cent
Full address: 5 per cent

Comments

The report titled "Beyond Trust: Engaging Consumers in the Post-Recession World" was conducted in partnership with The Futures Company and introduces "TrustR," a new metric for understanding the relationship between consumers and brands.

"The ‘TrustR’ metric is very relevant in a global economy that is struggling to emerge from a gloomy recessionary period," said Eileen Campbell, Global CEO of Millward Brown.

"Consumers are less likely to spend hard-earned money on brands that they don’t trust. In fact, we found that the number one ‘TrustR’ brand in each of the 22 countries we researched was nearly seven times more likely to be purchased and consumers were 10 times more likely to have formed a strong bond with these brands."

TrustR is calculated by looking at consumer responses to the questions "how trustworthy is this brand?" and "would you recommend this brand?" the scores are indexed and combined to reach a TrustR score. The average score is 100, and anything over 105 is considered good.

Amazon scored 123, followed closely by FedEx at 122 and Downy, Huggies, Tide, and Tylenol all had scores of 120.

The Top 10 Most Trusted and Recommended Brands in the U.S.

Source: Millward Brown

Note: Study conducted over the course of 2009, prior to Toyota’s recent recall

"When a person recommends a brand they put their own personal trust and credibility on the line. They are only willing to recommend brands which themselves have proven reliable and trustworthy," said Nigel Hollis, EVP and Chief Global Analyst  of Millward Brown.

"Amazon.com, the brand ranked first in the U.S. by TrustR, has achieved that status through exceptional service and providing its own recommendations to users. This combination has made Amazon the gold standard of trust and recommendation in the U.S."
 

Two years after that data was released, new numbers from Nielsen suggest that trust in others has increased dramatically. In fact, 90% of consumers now trust recommendations from people they know.

The chart below demonstrates the Nielsen numbers from 2007 (in yellow) and the point difference in 2009.

For example, in 2007, 78% trusted recommendations from people known. In 2009, that number grew by 12 percentage points to 90%.

What’s interesting is that brand sponsored/built content is making great improvements in trust. However, it’s yet another nail in the coffin of traditional media–trust in newspaper opinions actually declined!

Comments

Right off the bat, this tells me that:

A. You need to use social media and search to maintain your online reputation

B. Online product reviews can be of great benefit

C. Testimonials can’t hurt either

"The explosion in consumer-generated media (CGM) over the last couple of years – we are now tracking over 100 million CGM sources – means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly," says Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International, for the Nielsen Company.

One interesting detail to note is that according to Nielsen’s findings, brand websites score just as high as online consumer opinions. In addition, brand sponsorships have seen the greatest increase in levels of trust amongst Internet consumers in the last 2 years.

"However, we see that all forms of advertiser-led advertising, except ads in newspapers, have also experienced increases in levels of trust and it’s possible that the CGM revolution has forced advertisers to use a more realistic form of messaging that is grounded in the experience of consumers rather than the lofty ideals of the advertisers," says Carson.

The findings indicate that businesses really need to take their web presences seriously. Obviously, many of us are already well aware of this, but you may be surprise to know that many businesses still don’t even have websites, let alone professional looking ones and social media accounts.

Opinions online good or bad should be monitored. If that’s what people trust, it is up to you to make sure your brand is portrayed in as good a light as possible. You can find some good reputation management tips sprinkled throughout these articles.

Gray discusses a search for "ferrari development car," which returns 8 out of 10 results that are the same AP article on different sites. That almost sounds like…duplicate content.

"Well Eric I’m going to show you not only did you get it wrong , but you got it very wrong, not only are big brands just as responsible for the pollution of the internet, but Google is an enabler," writes Gray as he points to the above results.

Admittedly, when Schmidt made his statement, I agreed with him. In fact, I even wrote "I couldn’t agree more." I still believe that he was right when he said that the Internet is full of garbage, and brands are the solution.

However, Gray is also right to dispute this with the example he provides. I don’t take brands being the solution to mean that different brands providing the exact same content should rank higher than others simply because of their brands. The duplicate content has to be taken into consideration.

I also don’t take it to mean that the AP has to rank over a blogger like Michael Gray (not that he’s trying to rank for this particular example). To me, Gray represents his own brand, and he has certainly gained authority within his niche because he is well-known in the industry.

To me, in the Ferrari example, perhaps something from the car maker itself would have been more appropriate to rank higher. I won’t even say that the AP story shouldn’t have ranked. But the same story should probably not be ranked for 8 out of 10 results.

That said, I think brands do help users sort through the "cesspool." It’s about trust. Businesses and individuals need to build their own brands to establish that trust and authority.

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has posted a lengthy explanation about how Schiefer was hired, and why he has kept him on staff until his sentencing (he’s also tweeted several times about the incident). What it pretty much comes down to is that Calacanis feels that he is a good judge of character and he thinks Schiefer was just a dumb kid when he launched the (failed) attack and has seen the error of his ways.

Calacanis also wants to assure users that their information is not in any danger. "John’s work is well-supervised. Mahalo follows strict security policies and we don’t store any sensitive data anyway (Even if one of our employees did go off the deep end, the most they would have access to would be your questions and answers on Mahalo Answers–not much damage can be done there since they’re all public anyway)," he says.

Even if nobody’s data is in danger, this incident is likely going to leave a large bruise on the trust and credibility of Mahalo. The fact that he’s keeping him on as an employee up until his incarceration won’t help this. Calacanis defends the company’s decisions to the end though, and is well aware of the backlash the fiasco is likely to bring upon him and his company.

Calacanis notes that a simple Google search could’ve prevented him from being hired in the first place, and of course kept the whole ordeal from happening. Yet at the same time, he conveys little regret about the hiring at all. He says he’s ready to give him a job again once he gets out of prison.

Even if Schiefer is a great guy and is truly reformed, I can’t see this sitting well with customers. Calacanis has taken quite a chance with this approach.

What an online vendor lacks (and what becomes a disadvantage) is one-on-one interaction with the customer. As such, the customer must put forth additional effort to find out about a product for sale. Making this task easier can make all the difference in closing a sale.
 

According to GetElastic, an online retailer should strive to answer these customer questions ahead of time to reduce purchase anxiety:

·    Quality of the product
·    Quality and reliability of your customer service
·    Will the item arrive on time?
·    Will the product be as described or as appears on screen? Is it the right color or size?
·    Will it fit? Is this item true to size?
·    What if the product needs to be returned?
·    Is this site secure (privacy, credit card information)?
·    Is this really the best price?

According to one survey, 76 percent of respondents cited insufficient product information as a reason not to purchase, 79 percent rarely or never purchase with incomplete information, and 72 percent will abandon a site for a competitor or further research, usually finding the product elsewhere.

GetElastic.com says the top ten aspects of the online purchase process rated as “very important” to consumers reflected just two prime consumer motivations: gathering information and customer support. The top five, in this order were Product Overview, Merchant’s Guarantee, Stock Availability, Quality of Image, Customer Service Links.

Consumers want complete specs, and they want to know the online vendor will be there for them if something goes wrong.

This isn’t unusual human behavior, of course. Communication scholars love to toss about Uncertainty Reduction Theory, which has been around for over 30 years. According to this theory, humans follow a predictable pattern of information gathering when they encounter a stranger.

Uncertainty about the stranger causes anxiety and distrust, and so seeking out information is a natural way of decreasing uncertainty and anxiety, and of building trust.

E-tailers, then, need to build trust by making sure information is available and easily accessed. Without face-to-face interaction and without the ability to compensate for that lack with complete information, the customer isn’t going to risk doing business.

As a matter of fact, this is exactly what Arianna Huffington told Jon Stewart last week on The Daily Show, as she was trying to explain the concept of blogging, as Stewart was confused about the difference between it and other forms of writing.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Arianna Huffington Barack Obama Interview John McCain Interview Sarah Palin Video Funny Election Video

I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is the same basic concept that should be applied to business social media efforts as well, as I have discussed several times this week. Perhaps if more company bloggers followed this type of mentality, the trust from readers would grow and the company blogs category would move further up the list in future reports of this nature. The problem is that there are still so many people who just "don’t get it," as Jon Stewart illustrated on national television, and as company blogs all over the web illustrate on a daily basis.

There are plenty out there that do get it though, and the reputation of their medium is being dragged down by the masses. Richard MacManus at Read Write Web has an interesting analysis of the Forrester report, and thinks there are some problems with the research firm’s own take on the subject. He writes:

The Forrester report seems to be having its cake and eating it too – if your corporate blog is successful and meets its goals, keep it going; if it doesn’t, can it. But that is true of any blog, corporate or not.

To the larger point of whether corporate blogs are trustworthy, it depends on so many things that it’s difficult to make a sweeping judgment. For example, I trust some Microsoft blogs more than others – depending on the person blogging and perhaps even the department they work for. It depends on the style of blogging, the content that’s published, the way the blog is promoted, and so on.

I agree with MacManus. I could probably go through each of the media listed in Forrester’s graph and name sources I trust more than others within that same medium. Classifying an entire medium based on how trustworthy it is, is pretty much pointless to me. Not that I fault Forrester for this. They’re just supplying data, which I still find interesting, and if nothing else, highlights the need for company bloggers to improve their strategies.

On a Separate But Related Note…

Another thing I find interesting about the data is that way more people trust so-called "online content sites" than do company blogs or personal blogs, yet many of these content sites are becoming more like blogs in their own reporting. Could it be that people are trusting brands over writers? If that’s the case, it’s just ignorant of the individual writers’ reputations, and motives. Why is an independent blogger more trustworthy when he starts writing for the New York Times, CNET, or somewhere like that? When he suddenly has to keep a brand’s collective reputation in mind when he writes?

That is the power of branding.