This tool, which has been long overdue, has the potential to assist people in avoiding bogus organizations.
There is, nonetheless, one major shortcoming that has always plagued Google Search: if you are not careful, it is very easy to unintentionally hit a bogus site that mimics a real business. One would expect that the firm is now beta testing a long overdue solution that brings blue validated checkmarks to signify authenticity of a company.
According to a report by The Verge, checks started popping up next to URLs of the company’s sites for several businesses, such as Microsoft, Meta, and even Apple and Amazon. However, checks are not showing up for every single user and Google has confirmed that the feature is still being tested for incorporation.
“We advance a lot of test features that enable online customers to tell which businesses are genuine and which are not, and at the moment there is a limited test in showing check marks for some businesses appearing on Google,” a Google representative stated to The Verge.
As you will see, when you hover your mouse over a checkmark, a message will be displayed. “This icon is displayed because Google has some signals that this business is really the business it is claiming to be.” This does not mean that Google will vouch for the quality of this business or its products.
It appears that the execution relies on the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) feature available from Google. Gmail was the first to roll out this service, which also featured branding for emails sent by companies that signed up for the service. In Depending on the Search testing that is being performed, the structure is somewhat different but they may be able to use the same pool of organization.