Four professors at Northwestern University recently found that the process by which users arrive at a web site is an important factor in how they judge the credibility of the final destination. Such factors include:
- Reliance on one’s network
- Search context: people trust the top result in Google, and typically do not verify or validate the source of the result
- Branding and routines: people tend to use the same, branded research tool most of the time. Examples in the study include: Wikipedia, Google, SparkNotes. People tend to use specific brands for certain tasks, such as MapQuest or Chicago Transit Authority to find directions, rather than going through a search engine, such as Google.
The authors of the study are:
- Eszter Hargittai
- Lindsay Fullerton
- Ericka Menchen-Trevino
- Kristin Yates Thomas
You can find the study here.
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