into feet—we confide in Google at a level and frequency that would
scare off any friend, no matter how understanding.
We place immense trust in the mechanism. About one in six
Google queries are questions that have never been asked before.^13
What other institution—professional or clergy—has so much
credibility and trust that people bring their previously unanswerable
questions to them? What guru is so wise that he inspired so many
original questions?
Google bolsters its godlike pose by denoting clearly which search
results are organic and which are paid. This boosts confidence in its
search, since it seems to be untethered from the marketplace. The
result is that Google’s scriptures—its search returns—represent for
many a stream of unrivaled veracity. Yet Google gets to have it both
ways: organic search preserves neutrality, while paid content allows ad
revenue. And no one complains.
God is seen as having no agenda when answering queries. He is
omnipotent and impartial, loving all his children equally. Google’s
organic search gives out information that is fair and impartial, with no
judgment on who or where you are. Organic search results are based
only on relevance to your search terms. Search Engine Optimization
can help your site get picked up and appear higher in the list, but SEO
is still free and based on relevance.
Consumers trust organic results. We love this impartiality and
click on organic results more often than ads. The difference is Google
makes money exacting a toll from anybody (Nespresso, Long Beach
Nissan, or Keds) that wants to eavesdrop on our hopes, dreams, and
worries and present us with ideas on how to address them.
Just as there were personal computers before Apple, online
booksellers before Amazon, and social networks before Facebook,
there were also search engines before Google. Just Ask Jeeves or
Overture. Similarly, just as one or two seemingly minor product
features separated the other Four from their packs and turned them
into world conquerors—Jobs’s design and Wozniak’s architecture for
the Apple II; the rating and review system for Amazon; photos at
Facebook—at Google the defining factors were the elegantly simple
homepage and the fact that advertisers weren’t allowed to influence
search results (organic search).