The importance of effective search engine optimisation to any website has been given strong support by new research from the US, which established a direct link between perceived credibility and ranking in Google SERPs.
Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, U.S, have published a study which looked at how young adults evaluated the reliability of information found online. Appropriately titled Trust Online: Young Adult’s Evaluation of Web Content, the study had 102 higher education students sit at computers alongside researchers.
The researchers gave the students several different information seeking tasks to perform online using the pages that they would naturally use. Their activity was captured using video and repeatedly, the researchers found that student would navigate to brand-name search engines – typically, Google – to find information.
According to Eszter Hargittai, associate professor of communication studies at the university, search engine rankings were seemingly “extremely important” to student’s perception of the reliability of web content, saying: ”What mattered is that it was the number one result on Google.”
“Many student’s think ‘Google placed it number one, so, of course it’s credible’. This is potentially tricky because Google doesn’t rank a site by its credibility.”
Whilst the researchers findings may not be particularly reassuring for those concerned with young people’s ability to research a topic accurately – yet it certainly demonstrates how search engine optimisation can bring benefits beyond simple visibility in SERPs.
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