Image: Google
Hey, Google Search. You doin’ alright, bud? Lately you’ve been having a rough time, what with all those scams showing up in search results and your new AI buddy Gemini telling people to use glue as a pizza topping. Is that why you’re testing out those familiar-looking blue check marks next to verified URLs in your search result pages?
The Verge spotted verification badges next to some well-known company names in Google search results that led right to their relevant websites. Amazon, Apple, Epic Games, HP, Meta, and Microsoft were among the examples seen, though the badges aren’t showing up for everyone — not even the same person logged into different accounts.
“This icon is being shown because Google’s signals suggest that this business is the business that it says it is,” says the pop-up message for the badge (unhelpfully omitting a link to the definition of tautology on Wiktionary). It finishes in a bit of CYA legalese: “Google can’t guarantee the reliability of this business or its products.”
As an adoption of visual language that tons of people are familiar with, it makes sense. Even after all the drama surrounding Twitter’s verification system after the blue checks became effectively useless after Musk’s acquisition, little colored check mark icons remain social media speak for “this thing is legit.”
But applying this to Search would require web-wide automation, and Google’s pop-up text seems to be less than enthusiastic about it from a liability perspective. With that in mind, I could go either way on whether or not this will roll out to more users as a standard feature in Google’s most core product.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
