Misplaced trust? The relationship between trust, ability to identify commercially influenced results, and search engine preference

People have a high level of trust in search engines, especially Google, but\nonly limited knowledge of them, as numerous studies have shown. This leads to\nthe question: To what extent is this trust justified considering the lack of\nfamiliarity among users with how search engines work and the business models\nthey are founded on? We assume that trust in Google, search engine preferences,\nand knowledge of result types are interrelated. To examine this assumption, we\nconducted a representative online survey with n = 2,012 German internet users.\nWe show that users with little search engine knowledge are more likely to trust\nand use Google than users with more knowledge. A contradiction revealed itself\n- users strongly trust Google, yet they are unable to adequately evaluate\nsearch results. This may be problematic since it can potentially affect\nknowledge acquisition. Consequently, there is a need to promote user\ninformation literacy to create a more solid foundation for user trust in search\nengines.\n