The Business of Trust
We are at a tipping point. Unprecedented growth potential for businesses, on one side. Unprecedented consumer reluctance and fear, on the other. So, where do we go from here?
The word “trust” has made a noteworthy appearance within a recent trademark registration by Google. The search engine world is all abuzz with “Trustrank“, as well it should be. But the signifance of Google’s adoption of Trustrank (a choice that will transform the functioning of the search engine to its very core) reaches out to all of electronic commerce. In a low-tech nutshell, Trustrank is simply teaching the search engine right and wrong, before sending it out to do its job. This differs from the prior case, when the operation of the Google search engine was based entirely on math, programming and theoretical circumstances. The difference is human subjectivity, in other words — OPINION.
By choosing to adopt Trustrank, Google is telling us that it is going to give us its opinion whenever we hit the “Search” button. Further, as regards specific Web sites and domains, Google is telling us that its decision to include a given page in search results will be determined by whether or not Google has given its trust…more
December 14th, 2006 at 2:46 am
[…] Christmas is a good time to think about online consumer trust. Comscore predicts online retail will top $100 billion in 2006. That’s good news, to be sure. But while the horses are at full gallop, it makes sense to look out ahead for obstacles or others things that might trip us up. A few months back I speculated about the enlarging role of trust in electronic commerce. As an SEO dabbler, I had taken note of Google Trustrank, which accords trust using the deceptively simple formula: “Whomever is trusted by the trusted shall be trusted.” This fundamentally democratic approach to deciding which web pages to display in search results a larger trust-based scheme that might help stem online consumer fraud and other persistent consumer detractors. By choosing to adopt Trustrank, Google is telling us that it is going to give us its opinion whenever we hit the “Search” button. Further, as regards specific Web sites and domains, Google is telling us that its decision to include a given page in search results will be determined by whether or not Google has given its trust. […]