Google is the largest search engine the web has ever seen, the most powerful, the most capable, and the most reliable.
But the term "the most reliable" is an overstatement, considering the amount of privacy users need to part in order to use Google, and also due to the amount of information and data about any given topic, that Google needs to provide at any given time.
And here is the thing, Google cannot provide the most accurate information all the time.
The web is evolving fast.
And because Google crawls and indexes websites and their contents at a limited pace, knowing that it doesn't have unlimited resources , it may not be able to provide all the best of information during breaking news, for example, or when users search using queries that return results that are “rapidly evolving.”
Because of this, Google wants to be more transparent, by giving uses a warning in the moment when its search results may be unreliable.
Google Search can warn users if they are searching for a topic that is developing fast.
Another way of saying it, Google is warning users whenever its search results are changing quickly, as more authoritative information comes to light.
“If this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources,” the prompt says, which pops up above the search results.
In short, users should take whatever they’re seeing on the Google's results pages with a grain of salt.
To determine when to include the warning, Google has trained its software systems to detect rapidly developing topics that have a limited range of sources weighing in so far, according to Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison for search.
“[W]e've trained our systems to detect when a topic is rapidly evolving and a range of sources hasn't yet weighed in. We'll now show a notice indicating that it may be best to check back later when more information from a wider range of sources might be available.,” he wrote in a blog post.
This feature is initially introduced to Googles' search results in English to U.S. users.
According to Sullivan, the notice isn't meant to indicate whether the results users are seeing are right or wrong.
It's simply a warning to say that additional information may come out later.
“When anybody does a search on Google, we’re trying to show you the most relevant, reliable information we can,” Sullivan told the outlet. “But we get a lot of things that are entirely new.”
This move from Google should be considered a welcome move.
Obtaining timely reliable information is important these days. And whether people learn of something through social media or through others, the temptation to know more, is to turn to Google.
But considering that information travels at speed, and with the abundance of it, even Google cannot keep up.
There are tons of information about almost anything, at almost anytime. Because Google Search plays a central role in allowing people to get that information, Google wants to ensure that users get the most accurate information (based on what Google knows about them), by helping curb the spread of misinformation.