Rand Fishkin: Marketers are Skeptical About Google’s Public Statements

Rand Fishkin has been all out against Google, accusing the search engine giant of putting its interests above that of the users. Since his quiet departure from Moz to start a Sparktoro, Rand has been putting Google and its executives on the spot. 

Earlier in August, Rand had published an in-depth analysis of how less than half of Google Searches now result in a click. He was critical about Google becoming a portal rather than a search engine. He slammed Google for trying to establish a monopoly in search through its properties and features. 

On Monday, Rand has released another report about how webmasters trust Google’s official announcements. The analysis is based on 20 recent statements made by Google about search and paid ads. 

According to the analysis, webmasters are overtly skeptical when it comes to trust the announcements made by the search engine giant. The data from the report suggest that even though the announcements are taken seriously by the webmasters, they tend to accept these with a pinch of salt.

The data used in the report was collected during July and August 2019 via a questionnaire as part of the Google Ranking Factor Survey. The users were asked to rate the trust level they have on Google announcements on a scale of 0-4. 

• 0 displayed the highest level of distrust caused as a result of personal evidence
• Two displayed a moderate level of trust wherein the samples used for the survey found Google was revealing half-baked truth. 
• Four showed 100% trust and believed Google is fully transparent. 

The questionnaire was filled by 1,589 web marketers and each one of them was provided with 20 recent public statements of Google. 

The average response received from the web marketers ranged from 1.1 – 3.2. A conclusive average trust for all the 20 announcements made by Google barely touched the 1.97 mark.

According to Rand, it is a clear indication that web marketing professionals are skeptical when it comes to Google’s public statements.

He also added that this is an indication that tech-savvy digital marketing professionals give more importance to “statements with more nuance and flexibility vs. those that made universal, blanket-declarative pronouncements.” According to him, if Google considers trust and transparency as pillars of their operation, it’s time to put it into intense scrutiny as he says there exists a trust-void among the digital marketers and the internet giant.